周二怀俄明州的选民向利兹·切尼传递了一个响亮而清晰的信息:你被解雇了。
现在，当她作为来自牛仔之州的唯一国会议员结束在众议院的任期时，谣言四起她发现了更大的东西。她的发言人周三向美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)证实，她计划发起一个团体来对抗唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)可能的2024年总统竞选。
她也没有排除自己竞选总统的可能性——但这样的雄心引发了一个问题:共和党中谁会支持她?
普通共和党人可能不会对前总统感兴趣。
没有比切尼更突出的反特朗普共和党人了，主要是因为她是调查1月6日起义的众议院特别委员会副主席。尽管她在周二晚上向特朗普支持的挑战者哈里特·哈格曼(Harriet Hageman)让步，但她表示，她不会放弃谴责特朗普“他一直在努力瓦解我们的民主制度，攻击我们共和国的基础。”
切尼说:“在这片土地上，没有一个众议院席位，没有一个办公室，比我们都发誓要保护的原则更重要。”。"我很清楚恪守职责的潜在政治后果."
当切尼权衡她的下一步行动时，她发现自己陷入了选举困境:拥有国会中最保守的投票记录之一，但没有保守的基础。
“在她参与了1月6日的事情，并参与了(特朗普的第二次)弹劾后，她就不知去向了。她没有和人们见面。她不关心我们，”怀俄明州的一位选民Myrna Burgess在初选前告诉ABC新闻。
虽然像伯吉斯这样的居民称切尼的观点是一种背叛——“甚至听我们说话都是音盲，”伯吉斯说——但她的对手哈格曼也强调了她在这个幅员辽阔、人口稀少的州的竞选活动中要积极得多。这标志着切尼过去的改变，当时一些盟友形容她关注当地问题。(她的支持者表示，考虑到亲特朗普的反弹，她这一轮的竞选活动因她的安全而被缩减:“这是一种奇耻大辱，”一名代理人告诉美国广播公司新闻。)
对于所有跨党派呼吁的喋喋不休-当地的民主党人会涌向她考虑到怀俄明州在改变党派归属方面的宽松规定，初选并没有证实这一点:切尼总共只获得了大约50，000张选票，落后哈格曼近40个百分点。
周三早些时候，在她在杰克逊一个庞大的牧场发表败选演讲几个小时后，切尼宣布了她对反特朗普组织的计划，可能会封锁他返回宾夕法尼亚大道的道路。
切尼的发言人杰里米·阿德勒告诉美国广播公司新闻说:“在未来几周内，利兹将成立一个组织，教育美国人民对我们共和国的持续威胁，并动员团结一致，反对唐纳德·特朗普竞选总统的任何活动。”
这一步骤丝毫没有消除她将在2024年通过竞选直接挑战特朗普的猜测。
但是，切尼-一个姓氏中带有前副总统政治遗产的人-无法在自己的党内找到反特朗普保守派的空间，这一事实引发了真正的问题，即她如何才能在更大的潜在候选人竞争中取得突破，这些候选人毫无疑问地承诺忠于前总统，他被揭穿的声称他的选举被窃取。
更不用说切尼的失败如何继续说明这一严峻的不祥之兆:去年投票支持弹劾川普的10名众议院共和党人人中，除了两人之外，所有人都输掉了初选，或者选择完全不竞选连任。
像切尼一样，华盛顿众议员杰米·埃雷拉·布特勒，密歇根州众议员彼得·梅耶尔和南卡罗来纳州众议员汤姆·赖斯都被打败了特朗普支持的对手。
如果切尼继续热烈反对特朗普，这足以让她在2024年拥挤的人群中突围而出吗?
2022年8月16日，共和党候选人代表莉斯·切尼在怀俄明州杰克逊的初选之夜派对上发言。
戴维·斯塔布斯/路透社
抛开潜在候选人特朗普不谈，把切尼视为传言中的候选人之一。毫无疑问，该党的继承人佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯(Ron DeSantis)将喜欢指责切尼。德桑蒂斯是特朗普竞选中事实上的领先者，他以类似的拳击风格进行竞选因为说他“危险”因为他与许多共和党选民支持的MAGA-ism关系如此密切。
她还可能面临其他潜在候选人的严重政治抨击，如忠于特朗普的参议员汤姆·科顿(Tom Cotton)、乔希·霍利(Josh Hawley)和蒂姆·斯科特(Tim Scott)。
为一项事业成为烈士并不是最糟糕的竞选策略。切尼对她的原则的承诺确保了一个全国性的平台和数百万的筹款，即使这剥夺了她的政治权力。
问题是，已经有一批特朗普轨道的叛逃者可供共和党选民考虑。可以想象，最令人兴奋的政治离婚是前副总统迈克·彭斯，他似乎正在策划自己的声明，为共和党发布自己的平台，并在关键战场上露面。
像切尼一样，彭斯拥有强大的保守派立法资格，加上在白宫的工作经历，这是切尼难以匹敌的。如果前联合国大使妮基·黑利也参选，她也有可能占据“不太好”的位置。
正如一些人建议的那样，很难想象切尼会赢得共和党选民的任何重要部分，但更令人头晕的是，她会改变政党，与民主党结盟。
更有可能的是某种形式的独立投标——虽然，在这种情况下，切尼可能会发现自己比周二晚上迎接她的人更加真空。
Voters just booted Liz Cheney from office -- could she run for president as a Republican? (Analysis)
The voters of Wyoming on Tuesdaydelivered a message loud and clear to Liz Cheney: You're fired.
Now, as she closes out her stint in the House as the lone congressperson from the Cowboy State, rumors arethat she is onto something bigger. Her spokesperson confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that she plans to launch a group to fight Donald Trump's potential 2024 presidential bid.
She also hasn't ruled out a run for president herself -- but such ambitions beg the question: Who among Republicans would support her?
Likely not the rank-and-file GOP who feel magnetized to the former president.
There's no more prominent anti-Trump Republican than Cheney, principally due to her role as vice-chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Even as she conceded on Tuesday night to her Trump-backed challenger, Harriet Hageman, she said she was not giving up denouncing Trump for "his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic."
"No House seat, no office in this land, is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect," Cheney said. "And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty."
As Cheney weighs her next move, she finds herself in an electoral bind: with one of the most conservative voting records in Congress, but no conservative base.
"After she jumped in on the Jan. 6 thing, and she jumped in on [Trump's second] impeachment, she was nowhere to be found. She wasn't meeting with the people. She doesn't care about us," one Wyoming voter, Myrna Burgess, told ABC News before the primary.
While residents like Burgess called Cheney's views a betrayal -- "tone-deaf to even listening to us," Burgess said -- Hageman, her opponent, also highlighted how much more active she was campaigning across the vast, sparsely populated state. That marked a change from Cheney's past, when some allies described her as attentive to local issues. (Her supporters say her campaign events this cycle were curtailed for her safety, given pro-Trump backlash: "a crying shame," one surrogate told ABC News.)
And for all the chatter of crossover bipartisan appeal --that local Democrats would flock to her, given Wyoming's lenient rules around changing party affiliations -- the primary did not bear that out: Cheney earned only about 50,000 votes total and trailed Hageman by almost 40 points.
Early Wednesday, hours after her concession speech at a sprawling ranch in Jackson, Cheney announced her plans for the anti-Trump organization to potentially blockade his path back to Pennsylvania Avenue.
"In coming weeks, Liz will be launching an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our Republic, and to mobilize a unified effort to oppose any Donald Trump campaign for president," Cheney spokesperson Jeremy Adler told ABC News.
That step does nothing to dispel speculation that she'll seek to directly challenge Trump in 2024 by running herself.
But the sheer fact that a Cheney -- someone who carries the political legacy of a former vice president in her last name -- can't find space as an anti-Trump conservative within her own party raises real questions on how she could break through in a larger playing field of potential candidates who have no problem pledging loyalty to the former president and his debunked claims that his election was stolen.
Not to mention how Cheney's defeat continues to spell out this grim writing on the wall: All but two of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump's impeachment last year lost their primaries or opted not to run for reelection altogether.
Like Cheney, Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer and South Carolina Rep. Tom Ricewere all defeated byTrump-endorsed opponents this cycle.
If Cheney continues crusading ardently against Trump -- is that enough for her to break out of a likely crowded 2024 pack?
Casting a potential candidate-Trump aside, consider Cheney among the rumored hopefuls. There's little doubt that party heir apparent Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the de facto front-runner in a Trump-less race who campaigns in a similarly pugilistic style, would relish taking Cheney to taskfor calling him "dangerous"for aligning himself so closely with MAGA-ism, a sentiment that many Republican voters support.
She'd also likely face a serious political salvo from other potential candidates like the Trump-loyal Sens. Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Tim Scott.
Being a martyr for a cause is not the worst campaign tactic. Cheney's commitment to her principles has ensured a national platform and millions in fundraising, even as it deprived her of political power.
The thing is, there's already a decent bench of Trump-orbit defectors for Republican voters to consider. Conceivably the most rollicking political divorce was that of former Vice President Mike Pence, who seems to be plotting an announcement of his own, releasing his own platform for the GOP and making appearances in key battlegrounds.
Pence, like Cheney, boasts strong conservative legislative credentials -- plus a stint in the White House this Cheney will struggle to match. It's also possible that former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley occupies the "not so MAGA" lane if she runs, too.
As difficult as it is to imagine Cheney capturing any significant part of the GOP electorate, it's even more head-spinning to think she would switch parties and align herself with Democrats, as some are suggesting.
More likely is some sort of independent bid -- though, in that case, Cheney may find herself in even more of a vacuum then than the one that greeted her Tuesday night.
