Anti-Trump Republicans like Liz Cheney face the former president's allies in elections in Wyoming and Alaska

By Steve Peoples and Mead Gruver

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the leader of the Republican resistance to former President Donald Trump, is fighting Tuesday to save her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as voters weigh the direction of the GOP in two deeply red states.

Cheney's team is bracing for a loss to a Trump-backed challenger in the state where he won by the largest margin during the 2020 campaign.

Win or lose, the 56-year-old lawmaker vows to stay in national politics as she contemplates a 2024 presidential bid. But in the short term, she faces a dire threat from Republican opponent Harriet Hageman, an industry lawyer. Cheyenne rancher who has harnessed the full fury of the Trump movement in her attempt to oust Cheney from the House.

"We like Trump. She tried to impeach him,"

Cheyenne voter Chester Barkell said of Cheney.

"I don't trust Liz Cheney."

The allies of the current representative strive not to lose hope in the hours before the polls close.

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, center, speaks during a committee hearing investigating the storming of the Capitol in Washington, DC, on Thursday, July 21, 2022.Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

"I'm still hoping the poll numbers are wrong," said Landon Brown, a Wyoming state representative and Cheney ally.

"It would be a real shame if he lost. It shows the extent to which Donald Trump dominates the Republican Party."

Tuesday's elections in Wyoming and Alaska offer one of the last tests for Trump and his political power before the general election in November.

So far, the former president has largely dominated the fight to tilt the GOP in his favor, having helped install his most loyal supporters in key general election matchups from Arizona to Georgia to Pennsylvania.

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This week's contests come just eight days after the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump's Florida residence, recovering 11 sets of classified records.

Some were marked "compartmentalized sensitive information," a special category meant to protect the nation's most important secrets.

The Republican Party initially supported the former president, though reaction turned somewhat mixed as more details emerged.

In Alaska, a chance for Murkowski

In Alaska, a recent change in the state's election law gives a Trump critic, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a chance to survive the former president's wrath, even after voting to convict her in her second trial in Alaska. impeachment

.

Voters wait in line outside a polling place during the Republican primary election in Wilson, Wyoming, on Aug. 16, 2022.AP

The top four Alaska Senate primary candidates, regardless of party, will advance to the November general election, where voters will rank them in order of preference.

In all,

in the days after his supporters stormed the US Capitol as Congress tried to certify the president's victory. Joe Biden.

Only two of those 10 House members have won the GOP primary this year.

The rest have lost or have given up running for re-election.

Cheney would be only the third to return to Congress if she defies expectations that she will lose on Tuesday.

And Murkowski is the only senator who supported impeachment who is running for re-election this year.

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He faces 18 opponents -- the most prominent of whom is Trump-backed Republican Kelly Tshibaka -- in his fight to retain a seat he has held for nearly 20 years.

In contrast to the Republican candidates who joined Trump in other states this summer,

"When you get ideas from both sides to come together, a little bit of compromise in between, this is what lasts beyond administrations, beyond leadership changes," the Republican senator said in a video posted on social networks. social on the weekend.

"This is what enables stability and certainty. And it comes through bipartisanship."

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palin back

On the other side of the Republican race, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate, hopes to return to politics on Tuesday.

Supported by Trump, she was first among the 48 candidates who appeared in the special elections to replace Representative Don Young, who died in March at the age of 88, after 49 years as the only member of the Alaska House of Representatives.

Palin is on Tuesday's ballot twice: once in the special election to complete Young's term and once for a full two-year term in the House starting in January.

She faces Republican Nick Begich and Democrat Mary Peltola in the special election and a larger group in the primary.

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In Wyoming, Cheney's political survival may depend on enough Democrats voting in Republican primaries.

Though some Democrats have supported her,

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Aug. 9, 202201:44

Ardath Junge of Cheyenne said he recently changed his registration from a Democrat to a Republican.

"I did it just to vote for Cheney because I believe in what he's doing," said Junge, a retired school teacher.

Many Republicans in the state -- and the country -- have essentially excommunicated Cheney for his outspoken criticism of Trump.

Her fellow Republicans ousted her as House number three leader last year.

And more recently, the party in Wyoming and the Republican National Committee censored it.

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Anti-Trump groups, such as US Representative Adam Kinzinger's Country First PAC and the Republican Accountability Project, have worked to encourage independents and Democrats to support Cheney in recent weeks.

They are clearly disappointed by the expected outcome of Tuesday's election, although some are hopeful about his political future.

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"What's remarkable is that, in the face of almost certain defeat, he hasn't wavered once

," said Sarah Longwell, executive director of the Republican Accountability Project.

“We have seen how an American national figure is forged.

It's funny how small the election seems -- Wyoming's -- because now she feels bigger."

Cheney has apparently welcomed defeat by devoting nearly every resource at his disposal to ending Trump's political career since the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.

She emerged as a leader on the congressional committee investigating Trump's role in that attack,

giving the Democratic-led panel true bipartisan credibility.

He has also devoted the vast majority of his time to the committee rather than to the election campaign at home, a decision that still fuels murmurs of disapproval among some Wyoming allies.

And he has closed the primary campaign with an unwavering anti-Trump message.

"In the 246-year history of our nation, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump," former Vice President Dick Cheney said in a recent ad produced by his daughter's campaign.

He continued: "There is nothing more important that she can do than lead the effort to make sure that Donald Trump never comes near the Oval Office again."