By TIPPINSIGHTS EDITORIAL BOARD, TIPP Insights

For twelve months, an interminably long period in politics, Wyoming’s only House member has been a non-stop fixture on America’s airwaves. Puff piece after puff piece by friendly corporate media has tried to elevate her as a principled conservative willing to side with the rule of law over personality.

As Wyoming votes tomorrow in its primaries, it is almost certain that this rock-star Never Trumper will suffer a landslide defeat to Harriet Hageman, whom former President Trump wholeheartedly endorsed. Polls show Hageman with a 25-30 point lead.

Expect the media to write additional stories of support this week should Cheney somehow narrow this lead even in defeat, arguing that Trump’s hold on Wyoming is weakening and could be a foreteller of the midterms. Should the margin stay or expand, expect the media to chastise all Wyoming Republican voters for ignoring Trump’s evil behavior and warning that the GOP has dangerously embraced one man at the country’s peril. One can never win in the world of Trump.

That Liz Cheney, one of Wyoming’s shrewdest politicians, is a carpetbagger is rarely disclosed in today’s media. Like others who moved to a state only to use their family name to win office although they had little prior presence – Hillary Clinton (New York), Elizabeth Dole (North Carolina), Robert Kennedy (New York) – Cheney spotted an opportunity to challenge beloved-and-respected Mike Enzi for his Senate seat in 2013. In profiling her then, CNN noted that “she was born in Wisconsin and grew up in Virginia’s D.C. suburbs before attending college in Colorado and law school in Illinois. She spent most of her career working in the nation’s capital before moving to Wyoming last year.”

Current Wyoming senator Cynthia Lummis, who then held Cheney’s seat, was openly critical of Cheney’s effort to dislodge a popular sitting Wyoming senator. “I don’t know that anybody can out-conservative Mike Enzi,” Lummis said at the time, predicting that Cheney would lose the challenge. “Cheney will outraise him by factors of 10 or more, and he will still win because Wyoming is grassroots, retail campaigning.”

And true enough, Cheney’s effort was a disaster. She was wise not to endure a defeat in the primary polls. In early 2014, she withdrew from the race, citing health concerns in her family. Mike Enzi not only won the Republican nomination but comfortably held on to his seat in the general election.

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Corporate media pundits, who otherwise hate right-leaning politicians, laud Cheney’s record as a principled conservative – to drive home the point that they are fair. After Cheney won Lummis’s lone house seat, the media has not failed to point out that she voted with Trump more than 92% of the time during his presidency. During Trump’s first impeachment for the Ukraine phone call, Cheney joined all 195 Republicans who voted to dismiss charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Liz Cheney was the perfect character the corporate media could count on to make a partisan attack on Trump non-partisan. For the corporate press, which had invited the ridicule of many Republicans during Trump’s four years, January 6 came as a blessing. Here was a House member in the Republican leadership who was not only willing to vote for a second impeachment on the grounds that Trump was dangerous and shouldn’t ever be allowed to run for office, but a principled politician who was ready to become a pariah in the party to uphold the Constitution.

And Liz Cheney delivered for the corporate media better than a star prime-time host. Speaking in generalities, she first portrayed herself as the lone fighter to do what is right. When this approach did not save her – she was ousted from the House Republican Conference in May 2021 – it was too late for her to pivot to protect her political skin. So she dug in, in a risky strategy, stepping up her attacks against the “former president,” rarely mentioning him by name. In November 2021, four months after Cheney accepted a commission from Nancy Pelosi to become Vice-Chair of the J6 committee, Wyoming Republicans voted to no longer recognize her as a member of the state’s GOP.

Wyoming voters had delivered Trump a landslide victory in 2020, giving him nearly 70% of the vote. In the deep-Trump country, voters agreed that while Trump had a quick Twitter finger, they loved him for his America-first stance and for making Wyoming, an energy-rich state, relevant on the national stage.

Even more importantly, in a small state where corporate media is despised and has a limited role, and personal relationships matter more, voters saw three problems in Liz Cheney, in November 2021. They found her to be deeply disloyal to a beloved former president and, worse, a pawn of the leftist media. And they saw her aligning herself with the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Bennie Thompson, whose hypocrisy and anti-Trump hatred have divided America for seven years.

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So, as Liz Cheney will find out this week: voters matter and they will bring an end to what could have been a stellar political career, perhaps as House Majority Whip next year. The media is already launching trial balloons that she may be a presidential contender in 2024. Good luck with that. At CPAC two weeks ago, even Ron DeSantis was 40 percentage points behind Trump in a straw poll. No other Republican got more than 2% of the vote.

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