Trump critic Liz Cheney falls in US primary, but Murkowski survives

17 August 2022 - 12:08 By Liliana Salgado and Nathan Layne
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Republican candidate US Representative Liz Cheney waves during her primary election night party in Jackson, Wyoming, US August 16, 2022.
Republican candidate US Representative Liz Cheney waves during her primary election night party in Jackson, Wyoming, US August 16, 2022.
Image: REUTERS/David Stubbs

US Representative Liz Cheney, a fierce Republican critic of Donald Trump who has played a prominent role in the congressional probe of the January 6 assault on the Capitol, lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in Wyoming on Tuesday.

But Senator Lisa Murkowski, another Republican who has defied Trump, cleared a hurdle in Alaska as election monitoring firm Edison Research predicted she would advance with three other candidates to stand for election to Congress in November.

Cheney's defeat, by Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, marks a significant victory for the former president in his campaign to oust Republicans who backed impeaching him after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol building last year.

In conceding the race, Cheney said she was not willing “go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election” to win a primary.

“It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take,” she told supporters.

In Alaska, Edison projected that Murkowski would advance to the November election to face another Republican Trump-backed candidate, Kelly Tshibaka. The firm predicted Democrat Patricia Chesbro also would advance in a non-partisan format that weeds out all but the top four vote-getters.

Another race in Alaska looked like it would not be resolved soon. Edison predicted that no candidate would emerge as a clear winner in the three-way contest to complete the term of Representative Don Young, who died in March.

That race pits Sarah Palin, a former governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee who has been endorsed by Trump, against fellow Republican Nick Begich III and Democrat Mary Peltola. The winner will be announced on August 31.

Both Wyoming and Alaska are reliably Republican, making it unlikely that the results will influence whether President Joe Biden's Democrats lose their razor-thin majorities in Congress. Republicans are expected to retake the House and also have a chance of winning control of the Senate.

The ousting of Cheney is the latest sign of Trump's enduring sway over the Republican Party.

Trump, who has hinted that he will run for president in 2024, made ending Cheney's congressional career a priority among the 10 House Republicans he targeted for supporting his impeachment in 2021.

Cheney, the daughter of Republican former vice-president Dick Cheney, has used her position on the Jan. 6 committee to keep attention on Trump's actions around the Capitol riot, and his false claims that he won the 2020 election.

Republican leaders are expected to dissolve the Jan. 6 investigation if they win control of the House in November. The representatives in the new Congress take their seats in January.

Hageman, a natural resources lawyer who has embraced Trump's election lies, criticised Cheney's concession speech, saying it showed she cared little about the issues facing her state.

“She's still focusing on an obsession about President Trump and the citizens of Wyoming, the voters of Wyoming sent a very loud message tonight,” Hageman said on Fox News.

Reuters

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