Conservatives reject 'Republican' label for Liz Cheney after she endorses Democrat

Conservative media figures are calling on reporters to stop referring to Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney as a Republican following her endorsement of Democratic Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin.

Cheney made the endorsement in a press release on Thursday, according to Fox News, in which she referred to Slotkin as an "honorable public servant" and said she "wants what's best for the country and is in this for the right reasons."

The endorsement prompted a bevy of conservative criticism, with many figures labeling her a "Democrat." Cheney has not formally left the GOP.

Editor of The Federalist Mollie Hemingway shared an Associated Press article labelling Cheney as belonging to the "GOP."

"People who have been removed by their state GOP from party rolls, been removed from GOP leadership, are hand selected by Dem leaders to run anti-GOP operations, been utterly renounced by GOP voters and support election of Democrats are many things," she wrote. "'GOP' is not one of them."

Podcaster Wayne DuPree congratulated the Democrats on their "newest member" while Fox News host Mark Levin retorted that "Democrat Liz Cheney failed."

"When you do this, you're not really conservative or Republican," said NewsBusters editor Tim Graham, in reference to Cheney's endorsement of Slotkin.

Cheney's pivot from a major Republican and conservative leader to an unabashedly pro-Democratic and anti-Trump media figure has been a nearly two-year process.

After voting to impeach former President Donald Trump following the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Cheney became a pariah within the Republican Party. In May of that year, House Republicans voted to remove her from her leadership post as GOP Conference chair.

In September of that year, she accepted a position as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol incident, prompting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to label her a "Pelosi Republican." From her post on the committee, Cheney assumed an unabashedly anti-Trump persona and publicly made her case against the former president.

The Wyoming state party in November 2021 voted to expel her from its membership and, in August of 2022, she decisively lost the Republican primary for her House seat to Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman. She has vowed to leave the party if Trump becomes the Republican nominee in 2024.