<
https://theconversation.com/liz-cheney-trounced-black-sheep-effect-and-gop-partisan-identity-explain-her-decisive-defeat-after-criticizing-trump-188635>
"Republican Liz Cheney, a three-term member of Congress and the GOP’s leading -
and lonely - critic of Donald Trump, lost her re-election bid on Aug. 16, 2022,
to a Trump-supported primary challenger, Harriet Hageman.
Cheney had fallen out of favor with Republican voters across the country, who
viewed her unrelenting sharp criticism of Trump as apostasy. Her fall from
favor was dramatically evident in the Wyoming Republican primary, where Hageman
took 66% of the vote to Cheney’s 29% share.
It was a stunning reversal of Cheney’s showing in previous years.
In the 2020 general election in Wyoming, Cheney won nearly 70% of the vote,
based on her reliable voting record that was in step with the GOP legislative
agenda.
In a state where over 70% of registered voters are Republicans, Cheney should
have been a shoo-in for reelection in the Wyoming GOP primary. But she wasn’t.
Polling conducted 10 days before the election revealed Cheney trailing
political newcomer Harriet Hageman by nearly 30 points.
The key difference between then and now is that Hageman has been endorsed by
Donald Trump as a result of her embrace of Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020
election was “rigged.”
In stark contrast, Cheney remains one of the few GOP critics of Trump and
serves as the vice chair of the Jan. 6 congressional select committee
investigating the assault on the U.S. Capitol.
She has called Trump’s election lie “a cancer that threatens our great
Republic.”
In response, Trump has called Cheney a “despicable human being” and a RINO, a
pejorative acronym for “Republican in name only.”
The question then is how could the endorsement of a one-term, twice-impeached
and historically unpopular former president catapult an unknown candidate into
a massive win over an effective incumbent?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
