- Rep. Liz Cheney conceded defeat to her primary opponent Harriet Hageman.
- During her concession speech, she called on Americans to join her fight against Donald Trump.
- "This is a fight for all of us together," she said in Jackson, Wyoming.
Rep. Liz Cheney used her concession speech on Tuesday evening to call on Americans to join her fight against former President Donald Trump, whom she views as a threat to democracy.
"This is a fight for all of us together," Cheney told her supporters at her campaign's election night event in Jackson, Wyoming.
"I'm a conservative Republican. I believe deeply in the principles and the ideas on which my party was founded. I love its history, and I love what our party has stood for, but I love my country more," she said.
Cheney told the crowd that she had called her Trump-backed opponent, Harriet Hageman, to concede defeat in the Republican primary.
"Our republic relies upon the goodwill of all candidates for office to accept honorably the outcome of elections," Cheney said in what appeared to be a subtle dig at the former president, who still has not publicly acknowledged his 2020 loss.
"Tonight, Harriet Hageman has received the most votes in this primary. She won. I called her to concede the race. This primary election is over. But now, the real work begins," she added.
Two years ago, Cheney won her reelection bid in Wyoming with an overwhelming majority of the vote — a fact she brought up during her roughly 15-minutes of remarks.
"I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would've required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election. It would've required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democractic system and attack the foundations of our republic," Cheney said. "That was a path I could not — and would not — take."
"No House seat, no office in this land, is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect," she added. "And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty."
Cheney had faced a tough primary bid in Wyoming against Trump's push to remove her from office. She had voted to impeach him over the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, and has remained one of the most prominent Trump critics in Congress, prompting the former president to repeatedly attack her and endorse Hageman, a local natural resources lawyer and former Republican National Committeewoman.
Wyoming voters elected Trump in 2020 by the largest margin in the country. Pre-election polls showed Hageman with a commanding lead over Cheney.
Cheney had previously acknowledged the serious threat to her reelection chances but emphasized that no matter the outcome of the race, she would remain committed to her efforts to steer the Republican Party away from Trump. Cheney allies told Insider ahead of the primary that they believe her anti-Trump voice will stay in the national spotlight if she loses her primary.
Cheney will continue to make her case against Trump as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack as it holds more public hearings this fall following a series of them over the summer.
"We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January 6th that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office," Cheney said.
"Let us resolve that we will stand together — Republicans, Democrats, independents — against those who would destroy our republic," she continued. "They are angry and they are determined. But they have not seen anything like the power of Americans united in defense of our Constitution and committed to the cause of freedom. There is no greater power on this earth, and with God's help, we will prevail."