Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney is state royalty and a conservative's conservative. But because she's on the Jan. 6 House subcommittee, voters want her out
You might know Liz Cheney for her recent leadership of the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Her prominent role in the televised hearings has boosted her status nationally, but back at home, in conservative Wyoming, Cheney has effectively been disowned. Her vote to impeach President Trump and the decision to take part in the investigation has forced her into a sort of exile from her home state.
Gustavo Arellano: Wyoming's been in the news a lot lately, mostly because of its sole Congressional representative.
Liz Cheney: President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.
Gustavo Arellano: Liz Cheney is a member of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th capital insurrection and is effectively royalty in the equality state. But next week Wyoming's voters are expected to dethrone her…
When did you first realize that you were having second thoughts about Cheney? Oh goodness. When it came out that she was on the January 6th committee.
MUX BEAT
Gustavo Arellano: Her vote to impeach president Trump and the decision to take part in the January 6th investigation has made many of Liz's constituents feel betrayed and angry
Tape: I think Liz has turned on us
Gustavo Arellano: I'm Gustavo Arellano listening to THE TIMES essential news from the LA times. It's Friday, August 12th, 2022
MUX IN
Gustavo Arellano: Today, we kick off our coverage of the 2022 midterm elections. We’ll be updating you through the coming weeks about the issues important to California and the nation. In this episode, how Wyoming abandoned an old school Republican like Liz Cheney. What that means for the party and the country.
MUX OUT
Gustavo Arellano: Arit John is an LA Times staff writer based in Washington DC. Arit, welcome to THE TIMES.
Arit John: Thanks for having me.
Gustavo Arellano: So Arit, you recently spent some time out there in Wyoming. Why were you there?
Arit John: Yeah, So I went beginning of June, right around when the house select committee investigation into January 6th had their first prime time hearing. Liz Cheney is up for reelection this year and she'll be facing an August 16th primary challenge from Harriet Hageman. Polling has shown Hageman is leading by 20 to 30 points. So, I flew out to Jackson, talked to some people in Teton county and then I drove across the state to Casper, Wyoming, which is the second biggest city in the state.
And I just talked to a bunch of Republicans on both sides of this primary.
Gustavo Arellano: And Wyoming's a really Republican state. So basically whoever wins a Republican primary between Hageman and Cheney is almost certain to win the congressional seat.
Arit John: [00:02:00] Yes exactly. Wyoming is very, very staunchly conservative. The last Democrat who won the presidential election there was Linden B. Johnson in 1964.
Linden B Johnson: Most Americans want fair and stable prices and decent income for our farmers. And so do I.
Arit John: Right now, the Republican registration is about 73%. Some of that may be Democrats who crossed over because there's not really a competitive, Democratic primary.
And because Liz Chaney’s actively been trying to recruit Democrats to cross over and vote for her. But for the most part, this is a state that voted for Trump 70% in 2016 and 2020.
Gustavo Arellano: And this is a state that has sent Liz Cheney to Washington multiple times before, so how did she come to represent Wyoming?[00:03:00]
Arit John: So Liz Cheney has deep ties to Wyoming.
music in
Arit John: Her father, who's a former vice president Dick Cheney, also represented Wyoming in the House of Representatives for about 10 years.
Dick Cheney: Time after time, over the years, the, uh, family set aside other activities in order to join me on the road, they handed out Cheney for Congress buttons, went on bus tours helped me plan national campaign strategy and reminded me for years to smile for the cameras.
Arit John: She briefly launched a Senate campaign in 2014.
And then she dropped out of that Senate race. And then in 2016, Wyoming has one house seat and there was an opening there and she ran, she did really well in the primary.
Liz Cheney: It's a very special thing to have won this primary, you know, in a seat that my dad once held
Arit John: And then it was a straight shot to the general election.
And then she was reelected every year up until now.
MUX OUT
Gustavo Arellano: Yea, polls are suggesting that she’s probably going to lose the election next week to her main primary challenger, Harriet Hageman. What's her story?
Arit John: Harriet Hagman has a very, very strong Wyoming story. Fourth generation rancher, she grew up on a ranch on the Eastern part of the state and she went on to become a lawyer. And the sort of law that she's done has been fighting federal regulations in Wyoming.
So she's taken on the Clinton administration. She took on the EPA. She took on USDA regulations. So she represents a lot of central themes to Wyoming having those deep, deep roots in this state and also pushing back on federal regulation on a state that is fiercely independent and very wary of the federal government.
Gustavo Arellano: It's so interesting to hear that both Cheney and Hageman both have these deep, personal connections to Wyoming. And that’s important to the people who live there. There’s a saying that people in the state use a lot: “Riding for the brand.” Where does that saying come from and what does it mean when it comes to politics?
Arit John: “Riding for the brand” is like an old American west saying.
Mux In
It's this idea that back then the ranches, they had their brand, and and they would brand the livestock and that was sort of their logo. And you would see that and say, “Okay, this belongs to this person.” And so, you know, you're running a ranch and you have the ranch hand who are helping you. And so riding for the brand is basically saying you are defending this ranch. You are protecting and running this ranch and the livestock and everything as if it was your own. And so you're showing this sort of loyalty to the person who's employing you, this loyalty to that brand and to your fellow ranch hands.
Mux out
As it relates to today, you see both Liz Cheney and Harriet Hageman are trying to say, “I'm riding for the brand of Wyoming.”
Harriet Hageman: Out here, we were raised with the code of the west. We still live by it today
Arit John: The question is what is that brand? Hageman’s saying that it's about, you know, Trump won the state by 70%. It's about the issues that are affecting Wyoming today, like inflation, gas costs, fighting federal regulation,
Harriet Hageman Liz Chaney doesn't know what riding for the brand means. We sent her to DC to be loyal to the outfit that hired her, be loyal to Wyoming and our values. Instead of fighting for us, she's fighting against President Trump.
Arit John: But Liz Chaney is saying that it's about protecting the constitution
Liz Cheney: In Wyoming. We know what it means to ride for the brand. We live in the greatest nation God has ever created. And our brand is the United States Constitution.
Arit John: What happened on January 6th and what happened, leading up to it and what the committee is investigating, it's important to get to the bottom of that and hold people accountable.
Liz Cheney: if we set aside our founding principles for the politics of the moment, the miracle of our constitutional Republic will slip away.
Gustavo Arellano: But that take from Cheney is not exactly popular right now in Wyoming.
Arit John: It doesn't seem like it.The reason I went, in June is because I wanted to get a sense of how the hearing was playing out in real time.
And I talked to some people who did end up watching it.
music in
One of the Republicans I talked to out in Jackson was Rebecca Bextel, she's a local business owner. She had an interesting background. She's from Alabama.
She's been an Obama supporter. She's been a Ron Paul supporter. And then 2016 comes around and she's just like, “Oh, Trump.”
Rebecca Bextel: Trump, Trump, oh, he spoke to me. I loved him. I believed him.
Arit John: She said Trump spoke to her in a way that Obama did. And she's just been a diehard Trump supporter. And then she's also become a supporter of Harriet Hageman.
Gustavo Arellano: And so what did Rebecca and other Wyoming voters like her think of the January 6th hearings?
Arit John: I talked to a lot of people on both sides who were sort of like, well, I don't know if I wanna watch the hearings. I don't know if I wanna re-litigate what happened. There is this sense, I mean, there are the people who are fiercely supportive of Trump, but then there are also people who just wanna move on. Like they don't wanna think about what happened in 2020 or 2021 anymore. And so that's sort of been Cheney’s challenge of convincing people that what Trump did was wrong.
MUX
While I was in Casper, one woman I met with was Max Jacobson.
Max Jacobson: I was a farm girl with nine siblings
Arit John: Max Jacobson grew up on a dairy farm in Minnesota. She was in charge of the Trump rally that happened in Casper a few weeks before I went.
Max Jacobson: I have loved Donald Trump since forever.Because his dad was hard on him. I mean, I think I can relate by being the indentured servant from a Minnesota farm, our parents held us to a different standard back then.
Arit John: She used to be Liz Cheney supporter. And in fact, she was an oil filled worker for Halliburton where Liz Cheney’s father, Dick Cheney, worked.
I think that the thing that sort of made her switch over to Hageman was one: Liz Cheney being a part of the January 6th committee, but also she saw a lot of her own background in Hageman.
Max Jacobson Harriet worked hard. She was like us, an indentured servant to the ranch. She worked because she was hungry.
Arit John: So when she looks at Liz Cheney who, spent part of her childhood in Wyoming, but also spent a lot of time in Virginia while her father was in office.
Max Jacobson: The Cheneys were ranchers here, but Liz didn't grow up here. Liz didn't work hard. Liz had a golden spoon in her mouth.
Arit John: And then you look at Hageman who grew up on a ranch.
Tape: I guarantee you, I bet Harriet Hageman ran [00:10:00] around and when they were castrating the cow, she was carrying the bucket.
MUX HERE
Arit John: She basically said that Hageman understands that sort of like that the, the sort of work ethic that she had to have to survive growing up.
Gustavo Arellano: More after the break.
BREAK 1
Gustavo Arellano: Arit, how has Hageman capitalized on all this distrust of Cheney?
Arit John: Well, I think that the biggest advantage that she has is that she was endorsed by Trump last year.
Donald Trump: Over the next six months, the people of Wyoming are going to vote ]and you're going to send the incredible Harriet Hageman to Congress and together we are going to end crazy Nancy Pelosi's political career once and for all.
Arit John: We've seen in primaries all throughout this year the Trump endorsement can really help elevate candidates who are struggling, or candidates who are behind. but also
Hageman’s focused on this idea that the January 6th committee is run by Democrats.
So that has really helped Hageman paint this as you know, this is a Democratic project to undermine Republicans to undermine Trump. And by focusing so much on the committee, she's arguing that Cheney is not focused on the issues that actually matter to Wyoming voters.
GUSTAVO: What about policy? What’s the difference there between the two?
Arit John: So policy-wise, they're very similar.
Mux in
When Cheney ran for Senate in 2014, Harriet Hageman was a senior advisor on that campaign. So at one point they were very close. And it's funny, you can see that in the billboards around Casper, Cheney has billboards with quotes of positive things Hageman has said about her in the past and like a picture of them standing next to each other. So policy-wise, they're very similar. And if anything, historically, Liz Cheney has been a stronger advocate for Trump.
Mux out
If you go back to 2016, you have Liz Cheney who's defending Trump, even after the infamous Access Hollywood video came out. And then you have Harriet Hageman who is a Ted Cruz supporter and is actively trying at the Republican convention to stop Trump from becoming the nominee.
Gustavo: So...the difference between the two is really only that Trump endorsement...
Arit John: Yeah. the difference between them and a word is Trump. It's not policy, it's not different ideologies. They're both very conservative. They just differ on Trump and what happened during and after the 2020 election.
Gustavo Arellano: I’m curious though, how do people in Wyoming feel about whether Trump was good for the state?
Arit John: One of the things that I heard from people on both sides swas that even if you didn't like Trump's persona in the way that he handled politics, they did like his policies. They liked that he defended the oil and gas industry. They liked that he was for coal production.
They liked that he was against government overreach. And so on that front, a lot of people did like Trump. One professor I talked to said that in 2016, you could look at the vote in Wyoming as a vote against national Democrats and against Hillary Clinton. But by 2020, that was a vote for Trump.
Gustavo Arellano: So until the events of January 6th, Liz Cheney was actually pretty aligned with President Trump? At least in voting for the issues Trump cared about?
Arit John: Yeah, you know, the saying politics make strange bedfellows. If you go back to, if you go back to 2016,Cheney goes to Congress She's very, pro-Trump voting with him 95% of the time. And when it comes to policies, she's as conservative as it gets
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah. So how is Cheney trying to communicate her vision that she is “riding the brand for Wyoming,” even though she's against Trump now.
Arit John: Wyoming is a sort of place where you need to be out there campaigning and talking to people. There's about half a million people in the state. It's slightly bigger than Long Beach.
So the fact that she has been in DC focused on the committee hearings and people, if they're seeing her, they're seeing her on 60 Minutes, they're seeing her on the Sunday shows, they're not seeing her at the county fair or campaigning out there.
And so basically her campaign has been: I'm leading the January 6th committee as vice chair, I'm trying to defend the constitution. I'm standing up for what I believe in.
It's not the most politically expedient thing. It's not gonna help her get reelected, but the people who support her think that is consistent with Wyoming values to stand up for what's right. Even if it's not popular.
Gustavo Arellano: But it seems like Wyoming voters this time around are throwing those old school values away and just replacing them with loyalty to Trump. I mean, the Wyoming GOP has effectively shunned Liz Cheney.
Arit John: Yeah we saw in 2021 after she voted to impeach Trump, that a bunch of the county GOP parties, voted to censure her, then the state party did. And then later in the year, they voted to stop recognizing her as a Republican. And then you get to Washington and the House Republican caucus voted to kick her out of, leadership.
MUX
Gustavo Arellano: After the break. What Cheney struggles’ in Wyoming say about the future of the Republican party the rest of the nation
MUX
BREAK 2
Gustavo Arellano: [00:17:00] Arit, all these challenges that Liz Cheney is facing in Wyoming, the censuring, getting kicked out of the state's Republican party, probably losing in this upcoming primary. What does it say about the direction that Wyoming is headed? The brand, so to speak.
Arit John: The Wyoming Republican party, is going through a difficult time right now.
MUX
Frank Ethorn [00:18:00] Hi, my name is Frank Eathorn, chairman of the Wyoming GOP.
Arit John:, Frank Eathorn, he is the chair of the party. Recent reports have shown that he is a member of the Oathkeepers group and that he was at the capitol on January 6th. And he's also a very strong ally of President Trump. And he's squash any efforts to get away from that.
Mux out here
Gustavo:And one way Eathorne is doing that is by limiting some of the power of more populated counties in the state, which might lean more moderate...
Arit John: Yeah. he said that Wyoming is not a big tent within the Republican party. And so we've seen different county parties be punished for not adhering to the party orthodoxy.
Frank Ethorne Today. I wanted to talk with you about county and state conventions. And if you've been reading the media and listening to what they have to say, they have their own opinion on process. Now, let me assure you that the party has rules at the county level and the state level, and they are being followed.
Arit John: Natrona county and Laramie county are the two biggest counties in Wyoming and we've seen them get punished for, you know, sort of minor rule violations. Earlier this year at the state convention, Laramie county, where Cheyenne is located, they were not allowed to see any of their delegates because of a minor violation and at a recent, convention Natrona county, where Casper is located, they got their delegation slashed down from about like 30 to six. So basically they had as many delegates as the smallest county in Wyoming. And, you know, you talk to people in those counties and they say this is because we have opposed Eathorne, or this is because we're not playing along and we're being punished for it.
Even Liz Cheney has spoken out against Eathorne. She said in an interview that there was sort of an extreme element within the party, which some of the Republicans in Wyoming have sort of taken on with the badge of pride.
Gustavo: To what extent are we seeing these same sort of issues within the GOP nationally?
Arit John: I think it shows what's happening in a lot of the Republican party. That it's really, really difficult to stand up to Donald Trump, to criticize Donald Trump. There is a lot of loyalty to him in different states in the party at large. And especially when it seems like you are siding with Democrats to do that, politically that can end your career
Arit John: We saw this in Michigan recently where Peter Meijer, a freshman member of Congress, he comes from the Western part of the state, which is pretty conservative.
The main thing that he did was he voted to impeach Trump a few days after he got into office, and we saw him lose his primary to John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official and who was endorsed by the former president. So I think that what we're seeing in Wyoming is basically what we're seeing across the country, that there are a handful of people who are in the Republican party, who are willing to push back on Trump to say that, the 2020 election was not stolen through widespread fraud. And they're being punished for it.
Gustavo Arellano: Liz Cheney might be the most high profile Republican yet to face that backlash, and again, she’s a conservative’s conservative, voting with Trump over 90% of the time, and only broke with him on, on Trump, on January 6th specifically, so what does it say if Liz Cheney can’t win in Wyoming?
Arit John: I think it will have a big chilling effect on other Republicans. If you are on the fence, you're thinking about challenging what Trump has been saying, challenging, the idea that the election was stolen and you look at someone like Liz Cheney, who has more money than she could possibly spend in Wyoming, who has more name recognition in the state and nationally than anybody you can imagine, who's getting all this free press.
If she can't win and not only can't win, but if she is losing by double digits, which is what the polls are suggesting, then how can you do the same thing in your state and hope to win? I mean, she has, like everything going for her, but it's just, it's not enough.
Gustavo Arellano: Finally Arit, you also interviewed a Cheney supporter, Susan Stubson and she said that she hoped that a less vocal majority would turn out on primary day to give Liz Cheney another chance.
Susan Stubson: And I know it's super squishy, um, and maybe there's a, a, a little salt of optimism in there, but I feel like I am not the only one that holds these views.
Gustavo Arellano: That sentiment reminds me of the silent majority that Trump supporters were talking about in the run up to the 2016 election where you'll remember most of the polls said that Trump was gonna lose it. Then he ended up winning, and those silent majority people ended up being right. So, might the same be said now, not just for Cheney, but for Republican voters at large, only against Trump's ideology this time. In other words, that the silent majority of Republicans are actually going to vote against Trump and his candidates?
Arit John: I mean, I think it's hard to know what's in people's hearts, what they would do if they didn't have a fear of repercussions. And I think that's sort of what Susan Stubson was getting at. She writes a column for the local paper, and when she looks at the feedback that she gets from people, she just has this sense that there are more people who want to return to the traditional Republican party, traditional conservative values.There are more people who believe that than the polls suggest.
Susan Stubson: Folks are not 110% engaged, you know, they're business owners or they're raising their kids or they're out shooting guns or doing, you know, whatever,
The primary will really say a lot about whether that's true or not. Whether there is this sort of silent majority of constitutionally-minded Republicans who aren't happy with what Trump did in January 6th and leading up to it. There's a fear there too, Susan told me that she's cautiously optimistic, but afraid because that idea that there is a silent majority of people who are just afraid to speak publicly about this, but personally,privately do believe that Cheney is doing the right thing. You can only hold onto that hope up until the election.
MUX IN
Susan Stubson: Primary day here is, it's going to be terrifying.
Arit John: And then that will determine whether it's real or whether it was just optimism.
Gustavo Arellano: Arit, thank you so much for this conversation.
Arit John: Thanks for having me.
MUX
BREAK 3
Gustavo Arellano: And that's it for this episode ofTHE TIMES, daily news from the LA Times. Surya Hendry, David Toledo and Kasia Broussalian were the jefes on this episode and Mark Neito mixed and mastered it.Our show's produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistants are Madalyn Amato and Carlos De Loera. Our intern is Surya Hendry. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan.Our executive producers are Jazmin Aguilerra, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen. Like what you're listening to? Then make sure to follow THE TIMES on whatever platform you use. Don’t make us the Poochie of podcasts. I’m Gustavo Arellano, we’ll be back next week with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.