Republican who kicked Liz Cheney out of Congress seeks higher office in reddest state

Harriet Hageman beating Liz Cheney back in 2022 was one of those races that told you exactly where Wyoming stood, and now she wants to move up the ballot in a state where Trump won by nearly 50 points. That's not a comeback story. That's just what happens when a party actually reflects the people it represents.

The Cheney era in Wyoming Republican politics ended because voters got tired of a member of Congress who spent more time on cable news fighting her own party than she did representing cattle ranchers and oil workers back home. Hageman ran on that frustration and won by a landslide, not a squeaker. A five-way primary for Senate now just shows there's real appetite in that state for the next chapter, not a scramble to fill a vacuum left by some tragic loss of moderation.

National reporters keep writing about Cheney's ouster like it was some kind of institutional tragedy, a lone truth-teller cast out by an angry mob. That's never been the Wyoming view of it. Out there, it looked more like a state finally getting a representative who answers to them instead of to a green room booker in Washington. Whatever happens in this primary, the fact that Hageman is a serious contender for higher office isn't a warning sign about the party. It's just Wyoming being Wyoming.