Fans of Liz Cheney may want to click away from this story and, perhaps, go have a stiff holiday drink. The remaining scraps of her once-vaunted political “legacy” are being swept briskly into the dustbin of history. The rest of us can read on as Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman (WY)—the woman who delivered Cheney a decisive and humiliating electoral defeat—steps forward with a new announcement. That landslide loss didn’t just end a congressional career; it confirmed what voters already knew: Cheney’s brand of Beltway moralizing and anti-base grandstanding had no place in Wyoming, or the modern Republican Party.
As many political prognosticators expected, Hageman—currently Wyoming’s sole at-large member of the United States House of Representatives—has officially thrown her hat into the ring to succeed retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). Lummis’s surprise retirement announcement last week immediately shifted attention to Hageman, who had been openly considering a run for governor.
That retirement clearly altered the political calculus. On Monday, Hageman teased that a major announcement was imminent, setting off speculation across the state. Governor—or senator? With a Senate seat suddenly open, the answer became obvious, and Wyoming Republicans wasted little time rallying around a proven fighter with a record of taking on the establishment and winning.
Hageman promptly addressed the question by announcing her candidacy for the Senate. In a heartfelt video featuring her 102-year-old mother, the congresswoman reflected on the achievements of the past century and outlined the challenges that lie ahead as we move into the next hundred years:
The congresswoman didn’t shy away from touting her work with the Trump administration – Trump won Wyoming in 2024 with a whopping 71.6 percent of the vote: “President Trump’s America First movement made it popular to say you want to Make America Great Again, and he continues to deliver on that promise. It would be a great honor to keep advancing the America First agenda in the Senate, as it has been in the House.”
Hear that? That’s the sound of Liz Cheney grinding—and gnashing—what’s left of her political teeth. Harriet Hageman’s swift entry into the race could effectively freeze the field, discouraging would-be Republican challengers from even trying. Gov. Mark Gordon, a potentially formidable contender who’s term-limited in 2026, looms as the one name worth watching—but so far, he’s keeping his intentions close to the vest.
The real casualty here, though, is Cheney. She held Wyoming’s at-large House seat from 2017 to 2023, riding in on her famous father’s name, only to squander that inheritance with a raging case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that alienated the very voters she was supposed to represent. By declaring Wyoming unequivocally Donald Trump and America First country, Hageman—the woman who crushed Cheney in the 2022 Republican primary—has effectively finished the job. Whatever scraps remain of the Liz Cheney political “legacy” have now been dumped exactly where they belong: on the trash heap of history.