Former President Donald Trump said on Friday that Wyoming should have a runoff election to get U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney out of office.
In a statement, Trump said that Wyoming voters want a clear majority winner in the Republican primary for the state’s lone U.S. House seat and the only mechanism that accomplishes this is a runoff election, “pitting the top two candidates against each other.”
“Conservative Republicans in the Wyoming State Legislature like Senator Bo Biteman and Representative Chip Nieman led this effort. Unfortunately and sadly for Wyoming voters, RINO State Legislators stood in the way, defeating the Run-Off Election bills,” Trump said Friday.
The bill the president was referencing, Senate File 145, made it through committee during the Legislature’s session earlier this year, but was ultimately killed during this year’s legislative session. It would have called for a runoff election to be held between the leading two candidates in a race if no candidate received a majority of the votes cast in the primary election.
Earlier this year, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. voiced his support for run-off elections in the state as well.
The younger Trump framed his argument in support of the bill as opposition to Cheney, one of a handful of Republicans in the U.S. House to vote for the impeachment of the former president.
“The easiest way to defeat Deplorable Liz Cheney is by having only ONE Conservative candidate run and WIN! Wyoming Patriots will no longer stand for Nancy Pelosi and her new lapdog RINO Liz Cheney!” the elder Trump said on Friday.
Cheney handily won both the primary and general elections in 2020. In her first bid for Congress in 2016, she won almost 40% of the votes cast in the Republican primary.
