Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney suffered a brutal defeat in her primary back in August and has officially left office. Now, speculation is mounting that she may make a run for the White House.
CNN published a recent piece detailing “Republicans considering 2024 presidential run,” which included a profile on Cheney.
“Liz Cheney: The former Wyoming congresswoman who emerged as the foremost GOP critic of Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud lost her House seat to a Trump-backed primary challenger. She launched a political action committee last year and made clear she intends to try to purge the GOP of Trump’s influence. But what that means in the context of a potential 2024 bid is not yet clear,” the outlet noted.
Greg Valliere, a policy strategist at AGF Investments, published an analysis of the top 10 most likely Republican presidential candidates to “emerge soon.” President Joe Biden’s team has strongly suggested he intends to run. Former President Donald Trump announced back in November he was making another run for the White House.
Valliere notes that there are other notable Republicans such as Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and former Rep. Liz Cheney who could run as “darkhorse” candidates that gain steam in the GOP primary.
He also notes former Vice President Mike Pence, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have teased in recent months that they are considering a 2024 run.
And, of course, Valliere details how Trump’s biggest threat could come from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Ron DeSantis: He’s been the candidate to watch for the past several months, and he’s still the frontrunner. What are his flaws? He lacks warmth, detractors say, he doesn’t get along with the press and is too conservative on social issues. Actually, those could be attributes. Look for DeSantis to announce after the Florida legislature adjourns in late spring. He’s only 44 years old, a plus as the country looks for fresh leaders. He’s a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School and is a Navy veteran. DeSantis is the GOP favorite, poised to give Biden a very competitive race,” he wrote.
For her part, Cheney has dropped several clues that she may run.
During a recent interview, Cheney did not rule out running for president in 2024. Despite recent polling showing that she got clobbered in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary poll, Cheney made it clear that her mission is to go after former President Donald Trump.
“At this point, I have not made a decision about 2024. I am really very focused on the substance of what we have to do on the select committee, very focused on the work that I have to do to represent the people of Wyoming, and I’ll make a decision about 2024 down the road,” Cheney said.
WATCH:
While speaking at The Texas Tribune Festival, she threatened to leave the Republican Party if Donald Trump is the 2024 nominee.
“I’m going to make sure Donald Trump, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee. And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican,” she said.
She also gave an interesting answer when asked if she would run for president in 2024.
“It’s not about me or making a decision about what I’m going to do,” she said. “I certainly will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump isn’t anywhere close to the Oval Office.”
Cheney also recently headlined the American Enterprise Institute’s annual Constitution Day Lecture and invoked Abraham Lincoln’s “call for a patriotism” grounded in “reverence to the Constitution” and how it’s “essential in protecting our inheritance of liberty, and why we must resist the rise of a mobocratic spirit.”
This is not a coincidence.
Cheney used her concession speech in August to suggest she may run for president in 2024 to “stop” Trump.
“The path was clear. But it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic,” she said. “That was a path I could not and would not take.”
Cheney teased a 2024 run when she noted that Abraham Lincoln lost elections for the House and Senate “before he won the most important election of all” by winning the presidency.
She told the TODAY Show she was “thinking about” joining the 2024 Republican presidential race.
WATCH:
Liz Cheney is joining us live. @SavannahGuthrie is speaking with her about the defeat in the Wyoming Republican primary, her take in the message the voters were sending, and where she goes from here. pic.twitter.com/xrpOMs5fAv
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 17, 2022
“That’s a decision that I’m going to make in the coming months, and I’m not going to make any announcements here this morning. But it is something that I am thinking about, and I’ll make a decision in the coming months,” Cheney responded when asked if she had considered a White House bid.
