New Yahoo News/YouGov poll: Cheney has few supporters in GOP
Rep. Liz Cheney has said this week that she wants to lead the Republican Party away from former President Donald Trump, but a new poll indicates she has little support within the GOP.
The Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that only 17 percent of Republicans thought Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, should have stayed in a leadership position in the House GOP, which stripped her of the post this week. Cheney’s demotion in the conference resulted from her frequent sparring with Trump and her refusal to embrace his meritless claims that the November election was stolen.
Two out of three Republicans supported the move, with 65 percent favoring Cheney's removal, and another 17 percent saying they were not sure.
The survey of 1,561 Americans 18 or older, which was conducted from May 11 to 13, found that support for Cheney was almost exactly the reverse among Democrats, with 65 percent saying she should have remained as the House GOP Conference chair and 16 percent saying she should have been removed.
Among independents, meanwhile, Cheney’s removal from leadership was opposed by 41 percent and supported by 33 percent, with another 26 percent not sure.
And 68 percent of Republican voters said they wanted Trump to run for president again, despite the fact that he incited a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 after a months-long campaign of lies about the election result.
Cheney this week was defiant, saying that she “will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office.”
“We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language. We have seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution, and I think it’s very important that we make sure whomever we elect is somebody who will be faithful to the Constitution,” she said.
Cheney is making it clear she may run for president, which is one key way she can stay in the news. On Friday morning she called in to a New Hampshire radio station to do an interview — a blinking red signal that she wants people to think she’s considering a run, given the Granite State’s early primary. When asked about running for president, she said she was “not ruling anything out.”
This is one clear way Cheney can keep herself in the conversation and — more important — give herself some space to talk about something other than Trump. A purely anti-Trump message is unlikely to improve her standing among Republican voters.
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The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,561 U.S. adults interviewed online from May 11 to 13, 2021. This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, as well as 2020 presidential vote (or non-vote) and voter registration status. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.6 percent.
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