A House candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump handily defeated Rep. Liz Cheney in a Republican Party straw poll in Wyoming, according to a report.
Harriet Hageman, whom Trump endorsed in September to challenge Cheney in the Republican primary, won the straw poll conducted by the Wyoming Republican State Central Committee with 59 votes, the Casper Star-Tribune reported on Saturday.
Cheney came in a distant second with six votes.
The incumbent drew Trump’s ire when she voted — along with nine other Republicans — to impeach the president on Jan. 13 over his role in the Jan. 6. Capitol riot.
The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, she and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois are the only Republicans on the House select committee investigating Jan. 6.
The central committee last November voted 31-29 to no longer recognize the Republican congresswoman as a party member following her vote to impeach Trump.
Hageman’s vote totals were announced first at Saturday’s meeting and were greeted by applause, the Star-Tribune reported.
“I think it’s a good sign. It’s not an endorsement, but these are the county activists,” Hageman told the newspaper.
“The only elections that matter are in August and November,” Jeremy Adler, a spokesperson for the Cheney campaign, told the newspaper after the vote.
“This smells like an endorsement to me,” Natrona County Committeeman Joe McGinley said. “Whether that is the true intention of the state … or not, that’s what it appears to be.”
Hageman wasn’t ready to claim victory.
“There will be lots of polls over the next eight months, and they will all show different things,” she said.
