Liz Cheney may run as independent to defy Donald Trump

The ousted former Republican high-flyer will support candidates who run against election deniers.

Liz Cheney was ejected from her house seat in a vote by Republicans in her home state of Wyoming last week. Picture: AFP

Liz Cheney, the Republican congresswoman ousted by her party for criticising Donald Trump, has refused to rule out a White House run as an independent as she considers her political future.

Ms Cheney, 56, said she was determined to complete the House of Representatives select committee investigation into the January 6 riot and fight against “election deniers” – candidates who believe Mr Trump won in 2020 – including supporting Democrats against Republicans in a sign she is ready to break away from her party.

As national polls show deep dissatisfaction with the partisan party system and a yearning for alternatives to Mr Trump and President Joe Biden, running as an independent could be the most effective way for Ms Cheney to achieve her goal of “doing whatever it takes to keep Trump out of the Oval Office”.

Ms Cheney was a conservative high-flyer until she voted to impeach Mr Trump last year. She was ejected from her house seat in a vote by Republicans in her home state of Wyoming last week.

Asked by ABC News if she would run as an independent candidate, she said: “I’m not going to go down that path any more in terms of speculating today. I’m focused. We have a huge amount of work to do. And I will make decisions about what comes next after that.”

Ms Cheney plans to create an organisation to “educate the American people about what happened” last year when Trump supporters rampaged through congress as it met to ratify his election defeat.

“I think that we’ve got election deniers that have been nominated for important positions across the country,” she said. “And I’m going to work against those people. I’m going to work to support their opponents.

“You run for president because you believe you would be the best candidate, the best president of the US. And so any decision that I make about doing something that significant and that serious would be with the intention of winning and because I think I would be the best candidate.”

Bill Schneider, author of Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable, said Ms Cheney could become the Ralph Nader of the 2024 election, referring to the Green Party candidate in 2000. Al Gore, the Democrat candidate, lost to the Republican George W. Bush by 537 votes in Florida, while Mr Nader got 97,488 votes in the state. “Asked to choose between Mr Bush and Mr Gore, about half of Nader voters in Florida said they wouldn’t vote for either candidate,” Schneider told The Hill. “Most of the rest said they would have voted for Gore – enough to give Gore Florida’s 25 electoral votes and the presidency.

“Cheney would presumably take more votes away from Trump than from the Democrat (likely Mr Biden). She could do that by running only in a few large swing states like Florida and Wisconsin.”

Disillusion with the two-party system was shown by a New York Times/Siena College poll last month, with 58 per cent of voters believing the system of government needed reform.

Mitt Romney, a senator for Utah who also voted to impeach Mr Trump, said Ms Cheney had no chance of winning the party’s nomination. This suggests an independent campaign would be a more effective way to undermine Mr Trump than standing in the party’s primary contest.

The Times