Liz Cheney Suggests a New Political Party May Be Needed

Ms. Cheney, a longtime Republican, said that the G.O.P. “has rejected the Constitution in the name of supporting Trump” and that Mike Johnson should not be speaker.

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After a lifetime of supporting only Republican candidates for president, Liz Cheney, who represented Wyoming in Congress, has said she will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris this year.

Former Representative Liz Cheney, who has emerged as perhaps the most vocal and visible conservative critic of former President Donald J. Trump, suggested on Friday night that a new political party might need to be created to replace the Republican Party if he is defeated.

Ms. Cheney, who represented Wyoming in Congress and served in the House Republican leadership but recently crossed party lines to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president, said that the party she has devoted her life to may not be able to survive as a viable institution after being effectively hijacked by Mr. Trump.

“Whether it’s organizing a new party — look, it’s hard for me to see how the Republican Party, given what it has done, can make the argument convincingly or credibly that people ought to vote for Republican candidates until it really recognizes what it’s done,” Ms. Cheney said at the Cap Times Idea Fest in Madison, Wis.

“There is certainly going to be a big shift, I think, in how our politics work,” she continued. “I don’t know exactly what that will look like. I don’t think it will just simply be, well, the Republican Party is going to put up a new slate of candidates and off to the races. I think far too much has happened that’s too damaging.”

Ms. Cheney has been at the forefront of the opposition to Mr. Trump since he tried to overturn the 2020 election and riled up a mob of supporters that then attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. She served as vice chair of the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the events of Jan. 6 and paid the price by being expelled from the party leadership and then defeated in a Republican primary by a candidate endorsed by Mr. Trump.

The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who also recently said he would vote for Ms. Harris, Ms. Cheney has supported only Republican presidential candidates since casting her first ballot for Ronald Reagan in 1984. But her estrangement from her party was evident when she was asked if she still called herself a Republican and she said, “I’m a conservative.”

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