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

Harriet Hageman winning Wyoming's Senate primary isn't exactly a plot twist. This is the woman who beat Liz Cheney by 37 points in 2022, in a state where Trump carried nearly 70 percent of the vote. If you wanted a preview of how this race ends, that primary result three years ago basically wrote it.

What's worth sitting with is what Hageman's rise actually represents. Cheney lost her seat because she chose a permanent war with Trump over representing the people who sent her to Congress. Hageman ran as someone who'd actually vote the way Wyoming voters wanted, and Wyoming voters rewarded her for it, twice now. That's not a betrayal of conservative principle, that's the definition of it working the way it's supposed to.

There's a lesson here for Republicans who still think the path back to relevance runs through cable news green rooms and being the last one standing against MAGA. It doesn't. Cheney had a famous last name, a war chest, and a media apparatus cheering her on, and none of it mattered because she stopped listening to the people who actually vote in Wyoming. Hageman listened.

Now she's the favorite to hold Cynthia Lummis's seat in a state that hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate since the Truman administration. Nobody should pretend that's in doubt. The real story isn't whether Hageman wins in November, it's that Republican voters in the reddest state in the country have already told you, twice, exactly who they want speaking for them.