Liz Cheney has removed a national profile by crossing former President Donald Trump for his behavior on Jan. 6.
The Wyoming Republican is one of two Republicans on the Jan. 6 House committee, of which she is the vice chair — and her vote is one of the most obvious blame for the Trump uprising.
But on Tuesday, at home in Wyoming, Cheney faces voters who will determine her fate and whether to send her back to Congress.
And she seems to be in big trouble.
Cheney’s campaigns against Trump seriously jeopardized her job after she provoked his anger and prompted him to support primary challenger Harriet Hageman.
Polls show Cheney has fallen 20 points or more as her approval among Republicans in the state has taken a nosedive.
In an effort to adapt to that, Cheney has tried to appeal to Democrats, encourage them to cross over and vote for her, even calling out the late Democratic President John F. Kennedy in an email to collect money.
That seems like a good idea at first glance, but it’s probably fatal. There simply aren’t enough Democrats in Wyoming, the state that voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election by a greater margin than any other state in the country.
It was strange to see Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, being hailed as something of a folk hero among Democrats. The numbers confirm that: Marist poll, Cheney had a 60% favorable rating with Democrats.
But among Republicans, her popularity dropped to just 13%.
Looking at other surveys, it’s a similar story. For example, a Quinnipiac poll showed her approval with Republicans at 17%.
In Wyoming, a survey found Cheney’s disapproval in Wyoming at 72%.
That’s bad news for a candidate trying to win a competitive primary.
Let’s look at the numbers. In general, even if every Democrat, Constitutional Party member, libertarian, and every other unaffiliated registered voter in the state broke for Cheney, she would still be more than 200,000 votes short in a state just under 300,000 registered voters.
In other words, if Cheney won every voter in Wyoming who isn’t Republican, she’d still lose nearly 50 points (73%-27%) if she didn’t win Republican votes.
Cheney will obviously win the votes of some Republicans, but that’s a pretty steep hill to start from.
It all points to a potentially rough night for Cheney, and if she loses, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment on Jan. 6 will win their primary.
One of them, California’s David Valadao, is one of the most threatened Republicans in the country because he sits in a district that President Biden won by double digits in 2020.
That means when the next Congress starts, it’s possible only one Republican Trump impeacher, Dan Newhouse in Washington, will likely still be in office.