Public and Media Banned From Upcoming Wyoming Congressional Debate Including Liz Cheney

An upcoming debate between Wyoming U.S. House candidates, including U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, will be a private affair and closed to the public and media, according to Wyoming PBS officials.

WYOMING: An upcoming debate between U.S. House candidates, including U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, will be a private affair, closed to the public and media, according to Wyoming PBS officials.

Source [Cowboy State Daily]

— DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) June 26, 2022

The public and the media will not be invited to attend because of “safety concerns,” Cowboy State Daily reports.

“I would prefer the forum to be open to the public. You can thank Cheney for the closed forum,” Anthony Bouchard, another House candidate, wrote on Facebook.

Columnist Rod Miller writes: Pardon my French, but I’m pissed off!
It was just announced that the candidate debate between Liz Cheney and Harriet Hageman, to be hosted by Wyoming PBS next Thursday, will be closed to the public. https://t.co/fxDdEL5zd1

— Cowboy State Daily (@daily_cowboy) June 25, 2022

Media and public banned from attending Liz Cheney debate . . . .

***That's because her poll numbers are SO LOW in Wyoming!!!!!https://t.co/gzZKdXCcOw

— Dixie T 🇺🇸 🍊🍊🍊 (@DixT3) June 26, 2022

Cowboy State Daily added:

“To ensure the safety of the candidates, the debate is closed to the public and the press,” Terry Dugas said.

When asked to clarify if he thought the media would endanger the candidates, he repeated his statement.

“If the decision is made to allow press with proper identification, we’ll let you know,” Dugas said, mentioning that it will be reviewed with a “security team” next week but would not detail what security team he was referencing.

Hageman Reaction

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Harriet Hageman’s campaign manager told Cowboy State Daily that the Hageman campaign would prefer the debate remain open.

“We would prefer that the debate be more open, but these were the rules as presented to us. We did not make these demands or any others,” Miller said.

Politico reported in May that Cheney polled 30 points behind Wyoming attorney Harriet Hageman in her August primary.

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney is down 30 points in a new survey of her August primary conducted by the Club for Growth, which is opposing the embattled incumbent.

The poll, which provides perhaps the starkest illustration yet of the political peril Cheney faces this year, shows Wyoming attorney Harriet Hageman garnering 56 percent of the vote to Cheney’s 26 percent in the GOP primary. A third Republican got 12 percent support, and just 6 percent are undecided.

Hageman was recruited and endorsed by former President Donald Trump in response to Cheney’s vote to impeach him last year alongside nine other House Republicans.

The race for Wyoming’s lone congressional district is one where the Club for Growth and Trump, who have quickly turned from allies to foils, are aligned, though the Club has not formally endorsed Hageman. The poll, shared first with POLITICO, was conducted this week by WPA Intelligence, a Republican firm, ahead of Friday’s candidate filing deadline.

Trump has taken intense interest in the race because Cheney has been such a prominent critic of his attempts to subvert the 2020 election results. After her impeachment vote, she became one of just two Republicans, along with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), to sit on the commission investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riots that Speaker Nancy Pelosi created.