Liz Cheney is walking a fine line as she tries to fend of primary challengers

At a debate against other candidates trying to take her down, the vice chair of the January 6 panel tried to remind her state that she remains a conservative Republican at heart

Liz Cheney (AFP via Getty Images)

On Tuesday, Representative Liz Cheney led the questioning of former Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson about the former actions on January 6, 2021. But on Thursday evening, she was the one hit with a hail of questions as she faced off against four different primary challengers trying to unseat her from Wyoming’s at-large congressional district.

Cheney is persona non grata in the Republican Party thanks to her vote to impeach former president Donald Trump and her continued criticisms of the party’s fealty to him. Her apostasy has already seen her ousted as House Republican Conference chairwoman, and has led Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to back her main challenger, Harriet Hageman.

Yet despite all this, MCheney has doubled down on her critiques of the party – not least in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this week, in which she described what has befallen the US as a tragedy.

“And the tragedy is that there are politicians in this country, beginning with Donald Trump, who have lied to the American people and people have been betrayed,” she said. Cheney specifically cited how many of her committee’s witnesses were Republicans, including Bill Stepien, Trump’s former campaign manager (whom she also noted is now working for Hageman despite being from New Jersey).

“So I’d be interested to know whether or not my opponent Ms Hageman is willing to say here tonight that the election was not stolen,” she said at last night’s debate. “She knows it wasn’t stolen. I think that she can’t say that it wasn’t stolen because she’s completely beholden to Donald Trump.”

In response, Hageman decried the fact that the first two questions about the debate focused on January 6.

“The only time that the J6 situation ever comes up is when people talk about how unfair this entire committee is,” she complained. “They’re terribly concerned about the lack of due process. They’re concerned about the fact that there’s no ability to confront or cross-examine witnesses.”

Similarly, Hageman cited the discredited election fraud “documentary” 2000 Mules, right-wing provocateurs, and the theory that Mark Zuckerberg “captured” county clerks (a claim that has been fact-checked as false). In response, Cheney refuted the claims.

“The claims that Hageman is making are the same claims for which Rudy Giuliani was disbarred,” she said (in fairness, Giuliani’s law license was only suspended). “They are the same claims for which Sidney Powell has had her law license suspended. They are simply not true. It is not true that there was sufficient fraud to change the results of the 2020 election.”

At the same time, Cheney, trying to prove her conservative bona fides, said she supported voter ID legislation.

Cheney has had to walk a fine line in recent months, waging the fight of her political life to hold onto a seat that her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, held for many years. As The New York Times reported, her campaign has sent out mailers to Wyoming Democrats advising them how to change party registration to vote for her in the primary – this having said previously that this tactic would not be part of her strategy.

That need to reach out to Democratic voters might be why she voted for the bipartisan gun control legislation last week and she hinted at that vote.

“Our children need to be able to go to school and we need to know they’re going to be safe when they go to school,” she said.

But for much of last night’s debate, Cheney sounded like a conventional Republican and every bit her father’s daughter, calling Ukraine “the front line in the battle for freedom”.

In response, Hageman said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “would not have invaded Ukraine if President Trump was still the president” – ignoring the fact Trump tried to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on Joe Biden’s son, which triggered Trump’s first impeachment.

Similarly, Cheney blamed the Biden administration for inflation and for its energy policies and touted the fact that she voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And her response when asked about Covid-19 vaccine mandates showed just how fine a line she is walking.

“Everybody should get vaccinated. The federal government does not have the constitutional authority to impose a federal mandate, but everybody ought to get vaccinated,” she said. “And we need to do everything to protect ourselves from future viruses like this one that was clearly unleashed by the Chinese Communist Party.”