“As a conservative, as someone who believes in the Constitution, who cares about it, […] and because of the danger that Donald Trump represents, not only will I not vote for [lui]but I will vote for Kamala Harris”: this Wednesday, September 4, Republican Liz Cheney fully affirmed her support for the current vice-president of the United States during an event organized at Duke University in North Carolina. Words that had the effect of a bomb within the Grand Old Party (GOP), which is nevertheless accustomed to the Republican’s anti-Trump positions.
From support to aversion
Previously considered the party’s rising star, Liz Cheney, 58, is now engaged in a merciless fight against the former American president. Her goal: to prevent him from ever getting close to the Oval Office again. A mission she has been trying to honor since the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the date that officially marked the turning point in her political career. At the time of the events, the elected official was the head of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives, which made her the “number three” in her camp. A role that did not prevent her from denouncing the responsibility of the 45th President of the United States in the attack of January 6.
On the contrary, the one who voted 92.9% of the time with Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021, according to figures from FiveThirtyEightwas even one of ten Republicans who voted in favor of the impeachment of the real estate mogul, which cost her her position in the House of Representatives. To top it all off, the 50-year-old was vice-chair of the parliamentary commission investigating the assault. An event that definitively drew a line under 2016, the year in which she had supported Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton.
Result: During the 2022 Republican primaries, the former president had led a revenge fight with the sole aim of ousting the elected representative from Wyoming from the race. On August 16, Liz Cheney lost to Harriet Hageman, protégé of Donald Trump.
A figure of the Republicans
Far from being unknown in politics, the eldest daughter of Dick Cheney, vice president of George Bush Jr from 2001 to 2009, is known for being one of the Republican hawks. In 2019, she accused the Democrats of being “the party of anti-Semitism […]of infanticide, […]socialism.” Her pro-gun and anti-abortion stances had also made her an iconic figure in the political group. In June 2022, Liz Cheney congratulated the Supreme Court following the overturning of the Roe v. Wade ruling, which had until then guaranteed women the right to abortion in all states.
But now the party is fractured. Like the lawyer, more than 200 former Bush administration officials and former collaborators for the Republican presidential campaigns of John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 also affirmed their support for Kamala Harris this week in an open letter. A godsend for the Democratic candidate, who will try to conquer the White House next November.