“I don’t know if Cheney would characterize this as a winning streak. She’s just a fighter, ”said Amy Edmonds, a former Cheney employee and ex-Wyoming legislator.
This perspective may serve Cheney well, since his challenges are far from over. She still has to block her party’s endorsement in Wyoming’s dark red state next August, leaving plenty of time for pro-Trump forces to mobilize against her – although she probably benefits from several pro-Trump candidates competing for the same banner. If Cheney manages to keep his seat in the House, however, his ability to rise to the Republican leadership may still be hindered by his vote against a former president who said he was obsessed with overthrowing the Republicans who helped impeachment.
“She has been out there talking to people [in the state]. Sometimes people are not happy, “added Edmonds,” but she does not regret, and will never regret, that vote “against former President Donald Trump.
Once a rapidly rising star on the GOP, Cheney was in the mix as a future speaker; she even rejected a Senate bid last year to seek political fortune in the House. Now, several Republicans think Cheney will have a hard time earning her No. 3 leadership position in the House again next year, when she will almost certainly face a challenge for the job.
“Definitely not,” said Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), who supported February’s unsuccessful effort to get Cheney out of the lead. “I doubt she’ll win Wyoming.”
“Maybe she’ll be competing again in Northern Virginia,” he added, taking a hit at his residence outside DC
Several ambitious Republican lawmakers are already biting Cheney’s heels. Representative Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Chairman of the Conservative Republican Studies Committee, drafted a memo to House minority leader Kevin McCarthy last week, offering a competitive vision for the party’s future that seemed designed to alert Cheney. Banks’ messaging shows a post-Trump GOP still divided with internal tensions over its direction.
“You must have seen that I have been thinking a lot about the future of our party and how we capitalize on the gift Donald Trump gave us, which was his connection with working-class voters,” Banks wrote on Friday in an internal email. for the RSC that was obtained by POLITICO. “Because of Trump, the GOP has undergone a coalition transformation and is now the working class party.”
“We must embrace this. Don’t fight it, ”added Banks.
But Cheney is not backing down. She was asked about Banks’s memo during a call from the Institute of Congress last week and vigorously refuted its content, according to sources familiar with the exchange. Cheney argued that the Republican Party is not the class war party and that dividing society into classes is neo-Marxist and wrong.
And in public and private conversations – including a recent fundraiser with his father, former Vice President Dick Cheney – the sources described Cheney as a clear view that embracing Trump is not only constitutionally indefensible, but also fraught with consequences policies. The Republican Party lost the House, the Senate and the White House after four years of Trump, she noted.
Cheney has a lot to convince, with Republicans still largely in Trump’s corner after his acquittal from the Senate for inciting the deadly Capitol riot. More than any other Republican who broke with the ex-president after Jan. 6, his future – both in Congress and at home – will show whether Trump’s turncoats have room to stay and even stand up inside the Grand Old. Party.
“Yes, there are headwinds, but … the intensity started to decrease. And I think part of that is when you have the distance of time, ”said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), One of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. “I think her profile has increased substantially, and her position [in the GOP] increases every day. ”
It is not yet clear whether Cheney would like to remain on the Republican Party leadership team at the next Congress. She clashed publicly with McCarthy, and the two notably have not appeared together at their usual weekly press conference since the embarrassing moment on February 25, when they parted ways over Trump’s role in the party.
The allies, however, insisted that their working relationship is well and noted that they continued to have regular private leadership meetings. McCarthy and Cheney are also aligned when it comes to the Republican Party’s political agenda.
Some lawmakers think Cheney could seek a launch pad at the next Congress, trying to get a seat on the main committee, where his views on Trump would receive less attention, but where she could still continue to serve as a high-profile voice in the party for priorities. conservative. Others think she could be positioning herself for an eventual offer for the White House – in 2024 or later.
For now, however, Cheney has her leadership job sewn up, which has allowed her to focus on fighting President Joe Biden and regaining the majority in the House. Last week, she and Congressman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) Visited her home state to listen to stakeholders in the local energy sector. She also threw some red meat at the base, hammering Biden over the growing migration crisis and the tax increases proposed in her infrastructure plan.
This change, Republican Party lawmakers and strategists said, helped to calm some of the anger directed at Cheney and redirected Republicans towards their political gifts.
“She didn’t just weather the storm, she thrived in the storm,” said Doug Heye, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee. But, he added, “it will come in peaks and valleys. Trump is not dominating the whole political conversation right now. ”
Meanwhile, Gaetz – an antagonist so committed that he flew to Wyoming to troll her at a campaign rally – has his own fires to put out. The Justice Department is investigating his alleged relationship with a 17-year-old and whether he violated sex trafficking laws or paid women to have sex, and few Republicans are speaking out to defend him.
“I think it hurts Gaetz’s credibility and, in turn, the credibility of all these people who are trying to make this a referendum on the party’s leadership,” said Matt Micheli, former president of the Wyoming Republican Party. “Is this the party for Matt Gaetz or Liz Cheney? Well, let’s see, what do most people want? “
Cheney’s detractors argue that it will be much more difficult for her to win a leadership challenge if she is forced to face someone head-on. But they once underestimated her: Cheney’s critics, including Gaetz, shouted about having the votes to defeat her earlier this year, before she defeated them, remaining in power with the support of 145 Republicans.
“This is an overwhelming victory in any election. The numbers speak for themselves, ”said Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.). “Liz is going to have to decide if she wants to stay in the lead, [or] whatever she wants to run. But considering that reports of his death as president of the conference were widespread, I would say that his victory was quite overwhelming. “