Republican Liz Cheney raises $1.88M in three months and beats Elise Stefanik after she voted to impeach Trump and was removed as GOP conference chair
Rep. Liz Cheney announced on Tuesday that her campaign raised almost $1.9 million in the second quarter of 2021, hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Rep. Elise Stefanik who replaced her in a Republican leadership role after she voted to impeach President Trump.
Her campaign said the $1.88 million raised from April to June was a record for the Wyoming Republican.
The duelling totals will be seen as a measure of pro and anti-Trump sentiment in the Republican party as it wrestles with the former president's legacy while preparing for next year's midterms and a chance to take back the House.
Cheney supporters will see it as vindication for daring to speak out against Trump's unfounded claims that he won the 2020 election.
She was the most high profile of 10 House Republicans who voted in January to impeach Trump.
Rep. Liz Cheney raised almost $1.9 million, more than the $1.7 million raised by Rep Elise Stefanik, who replaced her as chair of the House Republican Conference after Cheney spoke out against President Trump's election fraud claims
Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas on Sunday. The fundraising hauls of Cheney and Stefanik will be seized on by their supporters as indicators of the relative strengths of Trump supporters and opponents in the Republican Party
But it came at a cost. Since then she has been ousted as chair of the House Republican Conference, the third-highest position in the House Republican leadership, and replaced by Stefanik.
And she faces pro-Trump primary challengers next year. State Senators Chuck Gray and Anthony Bouchard have already announced they will run against her.
Kevin Seifert, her political adviser, said it was encouraging to see so many back Cheney's stance on the constitution, conservative values and the rule of law.
'As these fundraising numbers make clear, she has robust support in this fight,' he said.
'Liz is demonstrating the type of effective, principled leadership that Wyoming deserves from its Representative.
'She will continue to fight the Biden Administration’s overreach and articulate how Republicans can offer a better way forward for the nation.'
Stefanik's campaign also claimed a new record, saying its total of $1.467 million was a new high for the second quarter of a year without an election.
It said Elise for Congress now has more than $2.1 million on hand - ten times more than all her opponents combined.
'I continue to be humbled, grateful, and blown away by the unprecedented small-dollar financial support for Team Elise and our mission,' she said.
'It’s clear that grassroots patriots across America are fired up, energized, and donating in historic numbers.'
Cheney was the only Republican named by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to sit on the newly established committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol
Although she lost her leadership to Stefanik, Cheney has made clear she does not regret her criticism of Trump.
'It became very clear that staying in leadership would require me to perpetuate the lie about the last election, perpetuate the big lie, perpetuate things that are dangerous,' she told the Wall Street Journal in a recent interview.
'I’m not willing to do that. Elise is willing to do that.'
And she attracted fresh anger when, two weeks ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named her as the only Republican on the newly created select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
'Congress is obligated to conduct a full investigation of the most serious attack on our Capitol since 1814,' she said.
'That day saw the most sacred space in our Republic overrun by an angry and violent mob attempting to stop the counting of electoral votes and threatening the peaceful transfer of power.'
Trump made his feelings clear when she was ousted from the leadership post.
'Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being,' he said in a statement.
'I watched her yesterday and realized how bad she is for the Republican Party.
'She has no personality or anything good having to do with politics or our country.'
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