Voters will decide the fates of two high-profile Republicans on Tuesday as primary elections occur in Alaska and Wyoming, two of the reddest states in the country.
In Wyoming, the vice chair of the House select committee investigating January 6, Liz Cheney, faces an effort by Donald Trump to punish her for disloyalty in the form of Harriet Hageman, her former staffer and current top rival.
Ms Cheney is deep underwater in the polls, and could lose tomorrow by more than 20 points by most indications. However, she has one trick up her sleeve: Democrats, who are rallying behind her in an attempt to block another 2020 electon conspiracist from office. Wyoming has closed primaries, but voters can change their registration on the day of voting.
Meanwhile in Alaska, the state’s former governor and right-wing provocateur Sarah Palin is seeking to make a political comeback after resigning her previous office under a cloud of ethics investigations. She trailed a fellow Republican, as well as one Democrat in the race, in a poll measuring her support levels last month. Alaska has ranked-choice voting, meaning that the candidates will have to contend with both Democratic and Republican voters deciding the outcome.
Key Points
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Voters head to polls in Alaska, Wyoming
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Liz Cheney faces greatest test of her political career
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Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski hoping for easy path to reelection
Liz Cheney and Lisa Murkowski: Two Trump foes with wildly different fortunes
02:30 , Oliver O’Connell
Two women who have stood up against Donald Trump while the vast majority of their party still bends the knee are facing primary challenges on Tuesday. They are likely to see wildly different outcomes.
Liz Cheney is running in Wyoming, one of the reddest states in the country, against Harriet Hageman, who is poised (according to polling) to beat the incumbent congresswoman by as many as 20 points or more.
In Alaska, meanwhile, a popular Lisa Murkowski is poised to coast to another victory in November, putting her back in the US Senate for six years.
Let’s take a look at why these two politicians are on such divergent paths despite their similarities:
Cheney and Murkowski: Trump critics facing divergent futures
Murkowski faces more than a dozen challengers in Alaska
Tuesday 16 August 2022 00:30 , Oliver O’Connell
Sen Lisa Murkowski is heading in to a gauntlet of primary challengers on Tuesday as voters will decide if she is to be re-nominated to the US Senate. Alaska has a ranked-choice voting system, meaning she will likely face three of her top rivals in November.
Ms Murkowski is a vocal critic of Donald Trump, a rarity in her party, and thus faces a Trump-backed challenger in the form of Kelly Tshibaka, as well as 17 other eager would-be senators.
She is strongly favoured to win reelection, however, due to her continued popularity in the state and the sheer number of competitors who will make it hard for Ms Tshibaka or others to stand out.
Read more in The Independent:
What to watch: Cheney in trouble while Palin eyes comeback
Monday 15 August 2022 23:33 , Phil Thomas
‘Was there an actual sentence in there somewhere?’
Liz Cheney’s campaign has mocked the leader of House Republicans after he came up with a jumbled explanation of why he wanted to see the back of his party colleague.
Kevin McCarthy, a staunch Trump loyalist, spoke to Fox News ahead of a primary in Wyoming that Cheney is expected to lose. While they have been close allies for years, the pair fell out when Cheney – formerly the third most senior Republican in the House – sought to hold Trump responsible for his actions in instigating the riot on January 6.
While McCarthy begged Trump to call off his supporters while they stormed the Capitol that day, he has since come back into the former president’s good graces by opposing any investigation into what happened and making a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.
Interviewed in Wyoming, McCarthy said: “The principle philosophy is less government, an idea of freedom and the aspect – just the concepts of a country that’s conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we’re all …”
Fox correspondent Rich Edson interrupts to say: “But hasn’t she fit that bill over the last several years?”
McCarthy responds: “I think her whole focus has been different. Her whole focus has been against one individual, whether she has information or not, instead of focusing on her district itself.”
Cheney’s campaign was unimpressed, issuing a statement saying: “It’s really difficult to understand that word salad,. Was there an actual sentence in there somewhere?”
Conspiracies complicate voting machine debate in Louisiana
Monday 15 August 2022 23:30 , Oliver O’Connell
The need for Louisiana to replace its voting machines is not in dispute.
They are badly outdated — deployed in 2006, the year after Hurricane Katrina struck — and do not produce paper ballots that are critical to ensuring election results are accurate.
What to do about them is another story.
Read more:
Conspiracies complicate voting machine debate in Louisiana
Vote ‘one, two, three times, whatever’
Monday 15 August 2022 22:30 , Oliver O’Connell
Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene encouraged supporters to get out to the polls during the November midterms and went one step further during a video address to advocate that they exercise their right to vote “one, two, three times”.
In the video clip, shared online by the left-wing Twitter account PatriotTakes, an account with more than 450,000 followers, the Georgia Republican is seen standing alongside Mallory Staples, who ran to represent Georgia’s 6th Congressional District in the spring but lost in the Republican primary to Rich McCormick.
Marjorie Taylor Greene tells supporters to vote ‘one, two, three times, whatever’
Dr Oz mocked for ‘grocery shopping’ campaign ad
Monday 15 August 2022 21:45 , Oliver O’Connell
A recent attempt by Dr Mehmet Oz to appeal to the average Joe voter is having a second life on social media and the response is likely not going to bolster his likeability in his campaign for Pennsylvania Senate.
In the brief campaign video, shared by the Republican candidate in April before he won the GOP primary, Dr Oz is seen shopping in a Pennsylvania store for a list of grocery items to help his wife, Lisa Oz, make crudité for the evening.
Joanna Chisholm reports.
Dr Oz mocked for ‘grocery shopping’ for wife and expressing shock over prices
What to watch in Tuesday’s primaries
Monday 15 August 2022 21:00 , Oliver O’Connell
Elections in Wyoming and Alaska on Tuesday could relaunch the political career of a former Republican star and effectively end the career of another — at least for now.
Here’s what to look out for:
What to watch: Cheney in trouble while Palin eyes comeback
Judge says Lindsey Graham must testify in Georgia election probe
Monday 15 August 2022 20:00 , Oliver O’Connell
A federal judge in South Carolina has ordered Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to testify in the Fulton County, Georgia, probe into the push to overturn former president Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.
In a 22-page order, US District Judge Leigh Martin May rejected Mr Graham’s motion to quash a subpoena ordering him to give evidence before a special grand jury under the supervision of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
Andrew Feinberg reports.
Lindsey Graham must testify in Georgia election probe, judge says
Pelosi sparks laughter with response to ‘is Trump a crook’
Monday 15 August 2022 19:00 , Oliver O’Connell
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s response when asked if former President Donald Trump is a crook got the room of reporters laughing during her weekly press conference.
On Friday, Ms Pelosi fielded questions concerning the FBI raid at Mr Trump’s southern Florida estate.
Gustaf Kilander reports on what the speaker of the House said.
Nancy Pelosi sparks laughter with response to ‘is Trump a crook’
Joe Biden is planning his reelection campaign
Monday 15 August 2022 18:15 , John Bowden
One question that has cropped up again and again this election season revolves around someone who isn’t even running: Joe Biden.
Will the 79-year-old Biden run again in 2024? The answer appears to be yes, despite very embarrassing comments suggesting the opposite from prominent congressional Democrats like Sean Patrick Maloney and Jerrold Nadler.
The Independent’s Eric Garcia looks at the latest reporting on Joe Biden’s plans for his next political campaign, which is reportedly set to kick off right after the midterms.
Biden expected to announce re-election campaign shortly after midterms
Liz Cheney and Lisa Murkowski: Two Trump foes with wildly different fortunes
Monday 15 August 2022 17:40 , Oliver O’Connell
Two women who have stood up against Donald Trump while the vast majority of their party still bends the knee are facing primary challenges on Tuesday. They are likely to see wildly different outcomes.
Liz Cheney is running in Wyoming, one of the reddest states in the country, against Harriet Hageman, who is poised (according to polling) to beat the incumbent congresswoman by as many as 20 points or more.
In Alaska, meanwhile, a popular Lisa Murkowski is poised to coast to another victory in November, putting her back in the US Senate for six years.
Let’s take a look at why these two politicians are on such divergent paths despite their similarities:
Cheney and Murkowski: Trump critics facing divergent futures
Marjorie Taylor Greene tells fans ‘vote 1, 2, 3, times’
Monday 15 August 2022 17:27 , Oliver O’Connell
Murkowski faces more than a dozen challengers in Alaska
Monday 15 August 2022 16:49 , John Bowden
Sen Lisa Murkowski is heading in to a gauntlet of primary challengers on Tuesday as voters will decide if she is to be re-nominated to the US Senate. Alaska has a ranked-choice voting system, meaning she will likely face three of her top rivals in November.
Ms Murkowski is a vocal critic of Donald Trump, a rarity in her party, and thus faces a Trump-backed challenger in the form of Kelly Tshibaka, as well as 17 other eager would-be senators.
She is strongly favoured to win reelection, however, due to her continued popularity in the state and the sheer number of competitors who will make it hard for Ms Tshibaka or others to stand out.
Read more in The Independent:
What to watch: Cheney in trouble while Palin eyes comeback
Sarah Palin leans in to Trump support ahead of primary
Monday 15 August 2022 15:50 , John Bowden
As former Gov Sarah Palin tries to reignite her political career with a victory in Tuesday’s US House primary election, the ex-VP candidate is leaning in to her support of Donald Trump, the man who has long attacked her former running mate, John McCain.
Last week, Ms Palin responded to the FBI’s raid of Mr Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, baselessly accusing Democrats of weaponising the agency to go after their political enemies. Many Republicans have argued as such as they dodge questions about why Mr Trump was apparently storing classified material at a resort in Florida despite no longer being president.
Dr Oz mocked over bizarre supermarket video
Monday 15 August 2022 15:14 , John Bowden
Mehmet Oz, better known as TV’s Dr Oz, came off looking like an out-of-touch celebrity or a member of Arrested Development’s Bluth family over the weekend after he posted a video in which he attacks his Democratic rival in Pennsylvania’s US Senate election for prices at the grocery store.
In the extremely odd video, a cartless and basketless Dr Oz hugs a stack of various produce to his chest as he misreads price labels and appears to experience the task of grocery shopping for the very first time. At least once in the video he appears to not understand that the prices displayed are by the pound, instead mistaking them for the costs of individual pieces of produce. He also appears to mispronounce the name of the store.
The video circulated on Twitter over the weekend after it was reposted by Ron Filipowski, a left-leaning activist.
Cheney trails challenger by nearly 30 points
Monday 15 August 2022 14:43 , John Bowden
A brutal poll out last week surveying the Wyoming GOP primary field found incumbent Liz Cheney, who faces blowback for her participation on the January 6 committee, down by 29 points to her rival Harriet Hageman.
On Tuesday, she could become the highest-profile Republican and only (former) member of the House GOP leadership to fall to Donald Trump’s vendetta against GOPers he sees as disloyal.
Many speculate that Ms Cheney is preparing for a future presidential run, or harbours other political ambitions. She hasn’t ruled out running for office in 2024.
