Trump critic Liz Cheney defeated in Wyoming's GOP primary
The Republican has vowed to do everything she can to keep the former president from returning to the White House
Liz Cheney, Donald Trump's fiercest Republican critic in Congress, has lost her seat in a major victory for the former president, but vowed to do everything she could to keep him from returning to the White House.
Ms Cheney, who had framed herself as a defender of American democracy, was soundly defeated in Wyoming's GOP primary by a Trump-backed challenger, Harriet Hageman, on Tuesday night.
But in a highly charged concession speech, she invoked Abraham Lincoln as she described her loss as the "beginning of the battle" and hinted she may challenge Mr Trump in 2024.
"Now the real work begins," she told a group of supporters including her father, the former US Vice President Dick Cheney, on the edge of a vast field in Jackson, Wyoming.
The three-term congresswoman has become a figurehead for Republican opposition to Mr Trump, and was a driving force behind the Congressional investigation into his role in last year's January 6 deadly attack on the US Capitol.
Her vocal criticism of Mr Trump had made her one of the former president's most high-profile targets in his crusade to purge the GOP of his critics.
Mr Trump called her defeat "a complete rebuke" of the congressional January 6 Committee. "Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others," he wrote on his social media platform. "Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now. Thank you Wyoming!"
The former president's supporters gleefully welcomed news of Ms Cheney's defeat. His son, Donald Trump Jr, tweeted: "Bye bye Liz Cheney" alongside a video montage of his father fist bumping and dancing.
Ms Cheney's primary race represents the last of the 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Mr Trump over his role in the January 6 attack, when a mob of his supporters attempted to stop the certification of Joe Biden's victory in Congress.
Mr Trump has backed Republican challengers who have repeated his disputed claim the 2020 election was stolen in races across the country, a largely effective campaign which has dealt a body blow to the moderate wing of the Republican party establishment.
With more than 70 per cent of the vote counted, Ms Hageman, a prominent lawyer in Wyoming, led Ms Cheney with 65 per cent to 31 per cent in the state's primary.
The defeat of Ms Cheney, once the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, would have been unthinkable just two years ago in Wyoming, a deep red state where the Cheney name has long been synonymous with political power. Her defeat is just the latest sign of the evolution of the Republican Party under Mr Trump.