For more than a year, Liz Cheney has said that she will do everything in her power to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president again.
There is a possibility of a presidential run. Even if she loses her congressional primary Tuesday to a Trump-backed challenger, a run for the nation's highest office is likely to be her next goal.
If she ran for president, many questions would be posed to the Wyoming Republican who is the vice chair of the committee looking into the Capitol riot. Is it possible that she would do so as a Republican. Is it possible to be an independent? Do you mean as a Democrat?
How would a presidential run stop Trump? She would lose the contest easily because of Trump's popularity with a large number of Republican voters.
Republican political operatives who hail from the anti- Trump wing of the party told Yahoo News that a Cheney presidential run could have a two-stage strategy.
Run in the GOP primary as a candidate for Republican voters who can't stomach Trump and who want to vote their conscience. To deny Trump the votes he needs to defeat a democrat, run as a conservative independent in the general election.
It is intended to prevent Trump from becoming president. Mike Madrid told Yahoo News that it was designed to take from the GOP base and make it impossible for Trump to win.
He said that the purpose of the presidential primary is to build an operation.
The Wyoming congressional primary is the first step towards a confrontation, according to Madrid. Madrid said that the ads she ran on Fox News were not an attempt to win Wyoming.
He said that the assault was on the national Republican Party.
In the ad, Dick Cheney says that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to our republic in the last 246 years.
He is not a good person. A man wouldn't lie to his friends. He was defeated in his election and lost a lot. The former vice president thinks most Republicans know it. Liz is the leader of the effort to make sure Donald Trump doesn't return to the White House.
The Wyoming primary is the first battle in a larger and longer war that she is going to win because the future of the country depends on it, according to an ally of Cheney.
The Cheney ally told Yahoo News that regardless of what happens, she will lead a broad coalition to defend freedom and restore principles that Donald Trump continues to undermine.
The larger question is how.
If Cheney mounted a credible challenge to Trump in a Republican primary, gaining 10% or 20% of the vote, how would she fare in the general election? Structural and psychological enemies of Cheney would be the two-party system, in which each side views the other as threatening.
Over the past several years, the number of Americans who think members of the opposing political party are dishonest, immoral and unintelligent has increased.
Many Republicans who support Cheney in a primary would be tempted to vote for the Democratic candidate in the fall election in order to prevent the Democrats from winning.
Democracy reformers promote ranked-choice voting in order to allow Americans to support their first choice without fearing that they will be helping a candidate they don't like to win.
Ranked-choice voting is being used in a number of states and cities. The state of Alaska got rid of closed-party primaries and is expected to have a Republican senator. The top four vote getters of any party in Tuesday's Alaska primary will advance to the fall election.
There's merit to the idea that a Liz Cheney candidacy would pull most from whoever the person is.
Searby warned that there will be other independent candidates for president in the future.
There are at least three incredibly wealthy individuals exploring independent runs, according to Searby. If Liz runs, it won't be. There is a good chance that there will be many independent candidates.
Independent candidates have to confront the reality of being on the ballot in all 50 states. It would be a clear test of grassroots enthusiasm for a Cheney presidential bid.
If Cheney ran as an independent, she could snatch some votes away from the Democrats. Cheney could try to avoid that by emphasizing her conservative views.
Her appeal to voters who are not just Republicans has made her a national figure. Searby said thatCheney has a wider coalition that goes deep into the progressives.
If she were to run as an independent, she would have to account for the risk and assure people that her candidacy wouldn't help Trump.
Searby wouldn't be a part of that scenario if he ran a third-party candidate.