Liz Cheney: Key moments of the Republican’s political career

Liz Cheney has lost the Republican primary for the Wyoming governor seat to Harriet Hageman.

Despite her loss, Cheney has said that she could have won the vote, like she did in 2020 with 73% of the vote, if she had been willing to “go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election.” According to her, by siding with the former president’s rhetoric, she would have to be a part of the effort to “unravel” the democracy of the United States and “attack the foundations” of the country.

Cheney has been one of the former president’s most outspoken critics, despite voting in line with his agenda 92.2% of the time. Her vote to impeach Trump resulted in her being removal as the chair of the Republican Conference. With the close of the Republican primary for the governorship, here are some of the highlights of Cheney’s career in politics.

2016: After announcing her decision to run for Wyoming’s US House seat, Liz Cheney wins in the fall, the same seat her father, Dick Cheney, held from 1979 to 1989.

2018: She was reelected to the House of Representatives in November. She also ran to become the chair of the GOP Conference, winning the election

2020: She wins her bid to serve a third term in Congress as well as becoming the No. 3 leader in the US House.

2021: On January 12, 2021, shortly after the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill, Cheney announces her that she will vote to impeach Trump. She is one of 10 Republicans to do so.

On February 3, the House Republican Conference decides to hold a secret ballot to vote on the removal of Cheney as the chair. The vote fails 61-145.

On February 6, the Wyoming Republican Party votes to strongly condemn Cheney for her remarks about impeaching former president Donald Trump

On May 11, the night before the House Republicans vote to remove her as chair, Cheney delivered a speech on the House floor, leading to all Republican lawmakers to walk out, except one, Colorado rep Ken Buck. In her speech, she says refuses to “abandon the rule of law” to join the “former President’s crusade to undermine our democracy.” The following day, on May 12 Cheney loses her position as the chair of the Republican Conference. 

On July 1, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi appoints Cheney to the committee that will be investigating the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill. In September, the chairman of the committee announces that she Cheney will serve as the vice chair. 

On September 9, just seven days after becoming vice chair of the committee investigating the January 6 attacks, Trump announces that he is endorsing Harriet Hageman as the Republican nomination for the 2022 midterms. 

2022: A year after being censured by the Wyoming Republican Party, the Republican National Committee formally censures Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only other Republican on the Jan 6 committee. 

The Jan 6 committee holds its first publicly cast hearing on June 9 and Cheney delivers the opening remarks, saying that the President “summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.”

On June 29, the day after the sixth house committee hearing on the Jan 6 attacks, Cheney delivers a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library saying that Trump was a “domestic threat” and that “Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution”