Liz Cheney, the elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, goes into Tuesday’s primary for Wyoming’s lone House seat as the front-runner.
{mosads}Liz Cheney is competing in an eight-way GOP primary for the heavily Republican at-large seat being vacated by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R). It’s also the seat her father once held.
If she advances from the primary, she will likely join Congress next year.
Cheney, a former State Department aide in President George W. Bush’s administration, challenged Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) in 2013 but dropped her bid months before the state’s primary, citing family health issues. She faced criticism for challenging a senior senator and moving to Wyoming only a year before announcing her Senate run.
She now returns to the political arena as the favorite to win a House seat and bring the Cheney name back to Washington. Her father served in Congress from 1979 to 1989.
She has significantly outpaced her competitors in fundraising and went into the race with high name recognition. A poll from last month showed Cheney up 12 points, though 52 percent were undecided at the time.
One of her primary challengers has received last-minute help from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Days ahead of the Tuesday contest, the former GOP presidential candidate backed state Sen. Leland Christensen (R). Paul was highly critical of Cheney’s father and the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
Lummis, the only woman in the House Freedom Caucus who has served in Congress since 2009, remained neutral in the primary.
Cheney’s top two opponents, however, have received the backing of some prominent Republicans in the state. Lummis’s daughter is the chairwoman of Christensen’s campaign, and former Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) is supporting another challenger, state Rep. Tim Stubson (R).
Over the weekend, the editorial board of the state’s largest newspaper, the Casper Star-Tribune, endorsed Cheney in the GOP primary and Ryan Greene in the Democratic primary.
Cheney has remained mum about whether she’ll join the Freedom Caucus if she’s elected to Congress.
According to Time, she said she would make that decision once she joins the lower chamber.