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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Liz Cheney won the Wyoming U.S. House seat formerly held by her father, easily beating a relatively unknown Democrat in one of the most heavily Republican states.
Neither Cheney nor opponent Ryan Greene has held elected office before, but the race was Cheney's to lose based on name recognition alone.
Cheney is a former Fox News commentator who worked in the State Department when her father, Dick Cheney, was vice president. Dick Cheney was Wyoming's lone congressman from 1979 until President George H.W. Bush appointed him defense secretary in 1989.
Cheney's win cemented a political comeback of sorts after she made a troubled and short-lived attempt to unseat popular incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi, a fellow Republican, three years ago.
Her more disciplined and tightly focused congressional campaign took a tough stance against what she described as federal overreach. Too much regulation, she said, is killing Wyoming's coal industry.
"It's a hugely important year and time for us in our state," Cheney said Tuesday. "It's going to be very important for us to begin to roll back this federal overreach and make sure we can begin to restore our freedom."
Greene congratulated Cheney on the win and said he would seek to continue to serve Wyoming somehow — after going back to work at his regular job in the oilfield services industry at 5:30 Wednesday morning.
"We had an uphill battle, you know, we knew that. We fought the best that we could with what we could afford," Greene said.
Cheney has called for abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, which she blamed for the more than 500 layoffs in Wyoming's vast coal mining industry so far this year.
Cheney also has heavily criticized President Barack Obama's policies in the Middle East, blaming his administration for the rise of the Islamic State militant group in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
Voters who picked Cheney mentioned her father. Dick Cheney could yet bolster his daughter's ability to influence world affairs, Cheyenne livestock veterinarian Tim Dawson said Tuesday.
"She has a lot of common sense. She got that from her father," Dawson said.
Christopher LaVanway of Cheyenne said he voted for Cheney in part because he didn't know much about Greene. "I voted for her father, and that kind of swayed me," said LaVanway, adding he's retired after 22 years of military service.
Cheney will succeed Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis, who announced last year she would retire after four terms.
The race heated up in the final weeks as Greene and Cheney took shots at each other's background and experience. In a debate Oct. 20, both candidates accused the other of exploiting family connections to get jobs.
Cheney accused Greene, an administrator in his family's Rock Springs oilfield services business, of being out of touch with laid-off miners. She said Greene never has had to worry about job security because he worked in his parents' company.
Greene fired back that Cheney was able to get a job in the State Department because her father was vice president at the time. Such confrontations were consistent with Cheney's take-no-prisoners approach to Washington politics — less so with Greene's more conciliatory style.
Greene described himself as an advocate of gun ownership rights and a friend to Wyoming's coal, oil and natural gas industries, but took heat from Cheney simply for being a Democrat. She repeatedly suggested that if Greene were elected, he would toe the Democratic Party line on most issues.
Cheney vastly outraised and outspent Greene and two third-party candidates, though on a somewhat smaller scale than during the Republican primary that pitted her against eight opponents.
Most of her donations came from outside Wyoming, and Greene painted her as beholden to outside interests. Cheney said her donors showed she was a national-level candidate able to fight for Wyoming on a broader level.
She also raised far more money in-state than did her opponents, she pointed out.
Cheney beat eight other candidates to win the Republican primary in August, claiming 40 percent of the vote to the runner-up's 22 percent.
Cheney moved to Jackson Hole from Virginia in 2012. Her run against Enzi the following year derailed amid accusations of carpet-bagging and several high-profile distractions. Among them was a public dispute with her gay sister over same sex marriage.
She quit that race seven months before the 2014 primary.
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Associated Press writer Ben Neary contributed to this report.
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