CNN analyst: Liz Cheney's political party 'is the Beltway media'

CNN political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., essentially had no political party at this point, quipping Wednesday her party now appeared to be the "Beltway media."

Cheney, who had won her previous three elections in Wyoming's at-large House district in landslides, lost by nearly 40 points to Donald Trump-backed Harriet Hageman in Tuesday's Republican primary. However, she signaled in her concession speech and subsequent interviews that she is not fading away. Perhaps the most prominent anti-Trump Republican in elected office due to her work on the January 6 House committee, Cheney has suggested she may run for president in 2024 and will work to keep Trump out of power.

Henderson noted Cheney's speech, which invoked Abraham Lincoln's political defeats before being elected president in 1860, was "grand in its language," but was skeptical of Cheney's wider prospects.

"We will see," Henderson said. "In so many ways, Liz Cheney is a person without a party. I mean, her party in many ways is the Beltway media. And, you know, she might get grand profiles in The Atlantic, and maybe she gets a cable news deal. But in terms of having actual Republicans who will follow her, we can see in the polling, we can see in the results from this race, but she, you know, is a person on an island in her party."

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Trump is "winning the battle" to eliminate opposing voices in the party, Henderson noted. Most of the nominees Trump has backed in various races have won their primaries, although some notable Trump-backed candidates, such as in Georgia, went down to defeat.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump on the count of inciting an insurrection in 2021, and she has since become a media darling as part of the Jan. 6 House committee. While she had a strongly conservative voting record and largely backed Trump's agenda in the House, her outspokenness against him over his stolen election rhetoric and conduct around the Capitol riot alienated Wyoming Republicans enough to where her defeat Tuesday was a forgone conclusion.

Cheney was never popular with the media as the No. 3 House Republican – she was bounced from that position earlier this year – and was even reviled at times; NewsBusters flagged MSNBC's Chris Matthews dismissing her in 2010 as the "daughter of Dracula." However, as an anti-Trump figure, she's enjoyed widely favorable mainstream press coverage, although some progressives have bristled at that given her conservative views.

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She remained defiant in defeat on Tuesday and raised eyebrows when she mentioned Lincoln, the first Republican president and one of the nation's most revered figures. 

"The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all," Cheney told supporters. "Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history."

She noted her "path was clear" to victory again in Wyoming, but it would have required going along with "President Trump's lie."

"A few years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the vote. I could easily have done the same again," she said.

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Detractors have said Cheney lost touch with her own voters and, led by Trump, have rejoiced in her defeat.