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Liz Cheney: Could She Join the Democratic Party?

Liz Cheney
Liz Cheney on Fox News Sunday.

How Liz Cheney Could Defeat Trump – Not With a 2024 Run – In an analysis of the top 10 Republicans who are most likely to enter the 2024 presidential race, political strategist Greg Valliere listed former Republican Representative for Wyoming, Liz Cheney. Valliere argued that Cheney is likely to run as a “dark horse” candidate in the Republican primary, even if the polls suggest that Cheney doesn’t have a shot at winning the nomination.

Unlike Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has refrained from directing attacks back at former President Donald Trump and who can attract Trump’s Republican base with his populist conservative approach, Cheney remains hugely unpopular.

According to Morning Consult surveys, Cheney has maintained just 2-3% support since at least December in a hypothetical Republican primary that includes her, Mike Pence, Greg Abbott, Mike Pompeo, Tim Scott, Glenn Youngkin, Kristi Noem, Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, and Donald Trump.

In recent months, news about Cheney has died down. Little has been said about a prospective 2024 run, or even how she intends to continue her campaign to delegitimize former President Donald Trump.

Despite the silence, though, Cheney is unlikely to have given up on her efforts to remove Trump from the forefront of the GOP and return the party to its pre-populist days.

How she goes about that, we’ll have to wait and see – but we do know that Cheney is willing to do everything within her power to get her own way and oust conservative populism from the GOP entirely.

Whatever It Takes to Defeat Trump?

Cheney has already proven just how willing she is to work with the Democrats to hurt former President Donald Trump and his backers in the Republican Party. Cheney was not only the top Republican on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s politically-charged January 6 committee, but she even helped Democrats campaign in last year’s midterms.

In November last year, Cheney received a standing ovation at a rally for Rep. Elissa Slotkin, Democrat from Michigan that Cheney praised as a “good and honorable public servant.”

“We have to stand up – every one of us – and say we’re going to do what’s right for this country and we’re going to look beyond partisan politics,” Cheney told the audience. It was the clearest sign yet that Cheney is willing to cross the aisle.

Liz Cheney: A Democrat? 

It may also have been an indication that Cheney’s hatred for Trump could be so strong that she’s willing to not only leave the Republican Party but become a Democrat.

Last year, during an interview with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith, Cheney said that she would do “whatever it takes” to take down Trump. Smith asked Cheney if she was willing to go as far as running for president herself.

“I certainly will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump isn’t anywhere close to the Oval Office,” Cheney said, adding that she would ultimately leave the party if Trump does get the nomination again in 2024.

“I’m going to make sure Donald Trump, make sure he’s not the nominee…and if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican,” Cheney said.

Cheney’s comments suggest that if she is to ever go as far as joining the Democrats, it’ll be after the 2024 GOP presidential primary process is over – and it probably means she won’t run as a Democrat for president, as some may have speculated.

But even if Cheney were to leave the GOP, and if she were to join the Democrats, her anti-Trump credentials probably won’t be enough to make her a powerful figure within the party.

Is Cheney Making A Mistake?

Hating Trump will only get Liz Cheney so far within the Democratic Party. Ultimately, the former congresswoman for Wyoming is a conservative – at least, more conservative than her new allies within the Democratic Party.

Democrats in Congress and the activists that get them elected struggled enough dealing with Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema standing in the way of President Joe Biden’s hard-left agenda the last two years. Being anti-Trump will only win Cheney so much favor with Democrats until she, hypothetically, becomes a force akin to both Manchin and Sinema within their party.

If Cheney truly intends to disrupt Trump’s efforts to take the 2024 GOP nomination, she’d be wise to skip the games with the Democrats and avoid her own 2024 run. A Cheney candidacy in a crowded GOP field would split the anti-Trump vote within the party.

Liz Cheney may also be wise to use whatever influence she has left within the party to discourage anti-Trump candidates from running their own campaigns for too long, and instead rally around Trump’s biggest competition. A head-to-head race between Trump and a staunchly conservative candidate with less baggage could see the former president lose. Faced with a crowded field of candidates, Trump is likely to win with a plurality of the vote, just as he did in 2016.

It would, however, require Liz Cheney to swallow her pride and back another populist conservative – likely Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – if she wants to take down Trump in the hopes that one day the party returns to the politics of the Bush era.

Regardless of whether the nominee is Trump or DeSantis, though, that doesn’t seem likely in the short term.  

Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.

Written By

Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive's Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.

14 Comments

14 Comments

  1. Paul McIntyre

    February 21, 2023 at 3:37 am

    To help Joe Biden get re-elected, Liz Cheney needs to replace K. Harris. Biden/Cheney 2024.

  2. Victoria L Flamion

    February 25, 2023 at 8:39 am

    Absolutely! She has what it takes as there’s no one else alive that will really work hard to change things. I’ve been touting her for President ever since her exemplary work on the January 6 committee. Her disdain for Trump, Green, Goetz, the list is long, proves to me she has a brain and uses it in the correct way. LIZ CHENEY FOR PRESIDENT! Send me a sticker for my car and a sign for the yard.

  3. Andrew P

    March 1, 2023 at 8:37 am

    Dizzy Lizzy could join Joe Manchin’s ticket if he runs as an Independent. Dizzy and The Snake. What a team !

  4. Bob Hayes

    March 1, 2023 at 2:16 pm

    That is good one. her dad was and is a democrat. so here you go

  5. Vicki Ruzicka

    March 3, 2023 at 11:04 am

    I LOVE Liz Chaney… her hard work was so evident in her committee follow-up to the Jan. 6 insurrection. She took a stand & demonstrated more balls than many of the YES men in the Republican party! All the Republicans were so damn afraid of Maniac Trump. Liz Cheney restored my faith in our country. For once, I believed a Congress critter who took a very outrageous stand and let me tell you, while I watched that committee on TV, I was waving the U.S. flag. She appeared as a strong leader should while she led that investigation group to expose much of the truth about Jan. 6th.
    I cannot stomach her father for his duplicitous & dangerous role during the 9/11, but I love Liz. She has greatness in her. If the Trumpers could only listen to the solid facts, many of them swallowed the Kool-Aid instead. Perfectly I know this well because in West Michigan where I live, these people fill the churches & neighborhoods. You ca n have no discourse with them. You’re not encouraged to speak your own mind, or reveal how you feel about Trump’s psychotic & often vile, behavior, demonstrates that he’s not a ma n with any kind of moral compass. He is/was The Great Prevaricator.

  6. Philip Wood

    March 4, 2023 at 1:32 pm

    Liz Cheney got fired for not doing her job. It is a simple as that. It was not because of Donald Trump but rather her failure to represent the voters of Wyoming. Why would anyone want that kind of person for President.

  7. Joan Hansford

    March 5, 2023 at 12:30 pm

    I think Liz would be a welcome addition to our democratic team. She’s a brave strong and smart vibrant woman with strong convictions.

  8. Bill Kelly

    March 5, 2023 at 4:55 pm

    Liz Cheney worries me. She cannot live in the lions’ den, (democratic party), as she has threatened, without becoming a lion herself. Where in this once great nation is a person of integrity and capability who is willing to be our president?

  9. James Rogers

    March 5, 2023 at 9:02 pm

    Liz Cheney has always been a democrat, much like the late John McCain.

    Kamala Harris slept her way into politics and now that she is old that dowsn’t carry the weight it once did.

  10. Penelope Ann Diebold

    March 7, 2023 at 9:31 am

    I’m a proud Democrat, but I’m very disillusioned with the extreme lefts power over our party. Liz Cheney reflects a more conservative balance we need in the Democratic party and the directions of our policies. Joe Manchin is deceitful, and Semma is a joke of a democrat.
    With Liz Cheney you are not betrayed, lied to, and she creates the image of an intelligent woman who can stand for the once valued integrity of Americas foundations. I do not agree with many of her political decisions in the past, but she would act in the best interest of both parties. She certainly would not cut Social Security and Medicare, yet there would be some give on our side for her to negotiate on other issues. I see her as a possible democratic presidential candidate.

  11. Julio Leal

    March 10, 2023 at 12:02 pm

    That would be a great favor this traitor can give to us, for a change. Good riddance. You want her? You deserve her.

  12. Brian

    March 15, 2023 at 11:59 am

    Liz Cheney is driven by her hatred for Trump. False. Liz Cheney is driven by her hatred for seditious activity and gobbledegook disguised as alternative facts. Liz Cheney is not going to run as a Democrat since she is diametrically opposed to their party positions on most topics. She is more likely to parlay what should be a given – ethics – into a national influencer. Calling Liz Cheney a RINO is the surest measure of someone who has prostituted their mind to populism. She is a dyed in the wool Conservative. Didn’t represent the people in her district? What is your position on Germans in pre-World War II who resisted the Nazi party? People come up with a billion reasons to justify their lack of ethics, when it is good old fashioned Cultism.

  13. Bubba Love

    March 15, 2023 at 8:11 pm

    Liz is a political mercenary with no political party. lol

  14. John D. Sheppard

    March 16, 2023 at 12:57 pm

    Cheney as Dem VP is just sick enough to work.

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