DEMOCRATS HELPED LIZ CHENEY. WILL SHE RETURN THE FAVOR?

Many Wyoming Democrats re-registered as Republicans so they could vote for Liz Cheney in Wyoming's Republican House primary, but there weren't enough of them -- she lost the primary by 37 points.

She's clearly planning to run for president. In her concession speech, she compared her congressional defeat to Lincoln's:

This primary election is over but now the real work begins.

The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our Union and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history.

Politico reports:

SCOOP: CHENEY’S NEXT MOVE — Rep. LIZ CHENEY is wasting no time beginning the next phase of her bid to prevent DONALD TRUMP’s return to office.

“In coming weeks, Liz will be launching an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our Republic, and to mobilize a unified effort to oppose any Donald Trump campaign for president,” Cheney spokesperson JEREMY ADLER tells Playbook exclusively.

The new group ... will serve as Cheney’s primary political vehicle as she considers whether to run for president in 2024....

So she's running. But what else will she do in the immediate future "about the ongoing threat to our Republic"?

Cheney could endorse -- and campaign for -- Democrats running against election deniers. She could go into moderate Republican districts and offer support for Josh Shapiro in his Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign against Doug Mastriano. She could campaign for Katie Hobbs Mark Kelly, and Adrian Fontes in Arizona, all of whom are running against denialists, Hobbs against Kari Lake in the governor's race, Kelly against Senate candidate Blake Masters, and Fontes against secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem. She could back Tim Ryan in his Ohio Senate campaign against J.D. Vance. She could campaign against deniers in Michigan and Nevada as well.

And if she's really a person of principle, she could campaign in Florida against Ron DeSantis, who's on a barnstorming tour speaking on behalf of Mastriano, Lake, Masters, and Vance.

I know -- I argued a few days ago that if Cheney runs in the Republican presidential primaries in 2024, she'll just inspire GOP voters to rally around Trump. But those are Republican primaries. These are general elections in states that are purple or, in the case of Ohio, not blood red. And if she's concerned that campaign appearances will inspire a Trumpist backlash, then maybe she could stay off the trail, but use her newfound star status to raise money for these Democrats.

Will she? Maybe. In the concession speech, she said:

Today, as we meet here, there are Republican candidates for governor who deny the outcome of the 2020 election, and who may refuse to certify future elections if they oppose the results. We have candidates for secretary of state who may refuse to report the actual results of the popular vote in future elections. And we have candidates for Congress, including here in Wyoming, who refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and suggest that states decertify their results.

Our nation is barreling, once again, towards crisis, lawlessness and violence. No American should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility, where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future.

So she might. But we'll see.

In the battle against Trumpism, Democrats are engaging in a lot of self-sacrifice. Democrats voted for Cheney in Wyoming. It appears that Democratic votes have made Lisa Murkowski the top vote-getter in Alaska's jungle Senate primary -- the top Democrat received only 6% of the vote in the Senate primary, but a Democrat, Mary Peltola, leads the at-large House primary with 35% of the vote (ahead of Sarah Palin), so there are clearly many Murkowski/Peltola voters. Democrats have chosen not to run a candidate in the Utah Senate race and have endorsed third-party candidate Evan McMullin instead.

This road should go both ways. We'll see if Cheney agrees.