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Speculation is growing about the role former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) will
play in the 2024 election as President Biden and former President Trump
barrel toward a rematch.
Cheney has vowed that she’ll do whatever it takes to keep Trump from
returning to the White House. She has left the door open to running an independent bid and recently launched her political action committee, the
Great Task, after Nikki Haley dropped her long-shot primary challenge
against Trump.
At the same time, she has said she won’t be a spoiler third-party
candidate if it helps Trump — leaving some Democrats curious, even
hopeful, she’ll publicly endorse Biden instead.
“If you had asked me 20 years ago, whether I thought it was a really good
idea for Democrats to team up with a Cheney, I would have told you that
you were drinking something,” said Democratic strategist Jennifer
Holdsworth. “But in this day and age, I think the more democracy-focused
folks we have working towards the same goal, the better.”
Holdsworth said she would “welcome” a Cheney endorsement despite their
policy differences and Cheney’s track record on issues such as women’s
rights, while also acknowledging such a move would complicate the former congresswoman’s future political ambitions.
Cheney underwent a sudden political evolution in the wake of the Jan. 6,
2021, Capitol attack, going from a once-rising GOP star to someone
vilified by her party for her opposition to Trump.
Despite her conservative track record, she was ousted from her position as House GOP conference chair and lost her primary last cycle to a Trump-
backed challenger over her objection to Trump’s baseless claims about the
2020 elections and his conduct during the Capitol riot.
Instead, she’s become one of the main faces of the anti-Trump movement,
having sat on a bipartisan panel to investigate Jan. 6 and using her
platform to target Trump-aligned candidates, including Arizona’s Mark
Finchem and Kari Lake, during the November 2022 midterms, while endorsing
some Democrats, such as Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).
Since leaving office, she has also released a memoir and doubled down on
her criticism of Trump — the kind of behavior that might signal
presidential ambitions.
Cheney has said as recently as January that she is leaving the door open
to a White House run.
“I haven’t made a decision about that,” she said on “The View” in January.
“But I think it’s really important, I mean, what you said — this election cycle, everybody has to go vote. Everybody has to go vote, and you’ve got
to be willing to say, ‘Look, I’m not necessarily going to vote for the candidate who belongs to the party that I belong to, I’m going to find the candidate who I know I can trust to defend the Constitution.’”
Cheney has also said she would not do anything to aid Trump. Some
Democrats are skeptical she’ll launch an independent candidacy given
concerns that it could hurt Biden, but it has left the party wondering
what exactly she will do.
Florida-based Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi said it was critical for Cheney to publicly endorse Biden, in the hopes it will attract anti-Trump voters who might otherwise support a third-party candidate.
“The problem is that the specter of third-party candidates means that
there could be off-ramps for anti-Trump conservatives swayed by Cheney …
who might then vote third party, which would be a benefit for Trump, not Biden,” Amandi said.
But some of Cheney’s Democratic colleagues in the House see her message resonating regardless of what she does.
“That’s up to Liz, but she clearly has been a defender of democracy and
someone who is sounding the alarm about how dangerous Donald Trump is. I’m comfortable if that’s the role that she occupies,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), who served with her on the House panel investigating the
Capitol riot, when asked what role he believed she should play in the 2024 race.
“I think her continuing to talk about Donald Trump being a threat to
democracy is enough,” the California Democrat added.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), another member who served on the House panel,
said he hoped to see her reach out to “disaffected and disenchanted Republicans” about Trump and the threat he poses. He didn’t advise her on whether she should endorse Biden.
“I want her to do what is going to be most effective for the preservation
of the republic, and she has a very strong gut check on that,” he said.
So far, Cheney has not said whether she’ll endorse the president in the
2024 election, underscoring the tricky political terrain she must navigate
as a vocal Trump critic whose ideologies largely still align with the Republican Party.
Though the anti-Trump faction is a minority within the GOP, Cheney’s
actions have the potential to sway voters and make the difference in a presidential election that will come down to the wire again in key states
such as Arizona and Georgia.
Biden for his part has not talked much about Cheney publicly in recent
months, but he has expressed admiration for her, saying in 2022 that “I
don’t agree with anything that Liz Cheney believes about the substantive issues, but I admire the hell out of her.”
Still, there’s hope among some Republicans that she will ultimately come
home.
Former Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), who was close to Cheney when they
served in the House, said that while he understands Cheney is a Trump
critic, he can’t see her backing Biden either. He said he’d prefer to see
her back the former president.
“That doesn’t mean she has to agree with President Trump,” Byrne said, but added that “this is truly a binary choice” between Biden and Trump.
It’s an argument other Republicans, like former Attorney General Bill
Barr, have made too, though it hasn’t swayed Cheney.
Democrats believe there’s a place for her in this election even if she
occupies her own lane.
“You don’t have to always put on the same jersey to be on the same team.
And I think that there are ways that [anti-Trump Republicans] can play
ball without wearing our jersey,” Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright
said. “Because it truthfully could, again, have unintended consequences if
they were to do so.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4526744-cheney-fuels-speculation- about-her-next-move/
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