Former Gov. Sarah Palin, meanwhile, is attempting a political comeback in a special election for the state’s lone House seat.
Trump and his allies have spent the spring and summer turning Republican primaries across the political map into bitter fights in which loyalty to the former President was the central factor.
He lost some high-profile battles, including in Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger held off Trump-back challengers.
Cheney chose to go down fighting Trump
But her strategy — attempting to convince the Republican electorate in a state the former President won by a margin of 43 percentage points in 2020 to turn on him — suggests she’d made a different choice: to go down swinging.
Surrounded by US Capitol Police officers on the campaign trail, Cheney opted for small, private events over rallies. She lambasted Trump in television interviews.
Her election night event, on a ranch in Jackson Hole with the sun setting over the Grand Tetons in the background, didn’t feature any television screens for supporters to watch results tabulated in a race Cheney was all but certain to lose.
She told supporters that she could have cozied up to Trump did what she’d done in the primary two years earlier: win with 73% of the vote.
“That was a path I could not and would not take,” Cheney said. “No House seat, no office in this land, is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect. And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty.”
Cheney’s decision to use the spotlight of her high-profile House primary to tee off on Trump was never a winning one in Wyoming. But it did endear her to a segment of anti-Trump donors and position her as the GOP’s most strident critic of Trump.
What’s next for Cheney?
But she used her speech to preview a continued fight against Trump, without laying out exactly what that means.
“I have said since January 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure that Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office, and I mean it. This is a fight for all of us, together,” she said.
“I’m a conservative Republican. … But I love my country more. So I ask you tonight to join me: As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together, Republicans, Democrats and independents, against those who would destroy our republic.”
As she left the stage, Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” blared over the event’s speakers.