The collapse in support is a remarkable fall from grace for Cheney, who just last year passed on an open Senate seat in her state to remain in House leadership instead. After ascending to GOP conference chair — the same post her father once held — she was touted as a future House speaker. Now, it’s impossible to call her anything other than an underdog in her own congressional seat.

Trump and his orbit have taken a strong interest in the race, and an endorsement could help clarify the field, which already features four Republicans who have filed to run against Cheney. But more contenders are waiting on the sidelines, and Trump’s political team, according to two people familiar with the efforts, has shown early interest in recruiting a pair of Republicans who aren’t already in the race: attorney Darin Smith, who ran for the seat in 2016, and Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan.

“I think anybody who’s a decent Republican is going to get behind whoever Donald Trump eventually endorses,” Smith said in an interview. “He’s gonna look under every rock and look over the lay of the land, and he’s going to determine who that person that he’s going to get behind is.”

He said he’s been approached about entering the race and is seriously considering it. “We need somebody, for sure, that will export Wyoming’s values to Washington and not the other way around,” Smith said.

Smith placed fourth in Wyoming’s Republican congressional primary in 2016, when the seat was open, and appears more likely to enter the fray than Buchanan, who would have to forgo reelection as secretary of state to challenge Cheney. The two are unlikely to both jump into the primary, and people close to Buchanan said they think he is leaning against a run.

There are two other candidates already running who have raised a significant amount of money, state legislators Chuck Gray and Anthony Bouchard, and others are interested, but the field is not settled, and there’s desire among Trump allies in Wyoming and Washington to sort out the race quickly. Besides the president’s team, the anti-tax Club for Growth is also eager to get in the race and has been vetting prospective candidates.

“We would have a desire to try to line up with the president’s endorsements and our spending and super PAC to help that candidate really make it a two-person race,” said David McIntosh, the Club for Growth’s president. “If you get a half-dozen different people in the race, then whoever gets to 25, 30 percent wins. Liz Cheney could do that — she’s got a ceiling at about 30 percent.”

The Club polled in the state in late April and found her favorable rating underwater by 36 points, with 52 percent of those surveyed saying they would not back Cheney regardless of who ran against her. Only 14 percent said they would support her under any circumstance.

Support from the Club and the president would arm any candidate with a powerful list of small-dollar donors and, more importantly, the most powerful endorsement a candidate could have in Wyoming. Trump carried the state with roughly 70 percent in both 2016 and 2020.

Continue reading at:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/06/cheney-wyoming-2022-primary-485508