Liz Cheney is ‘riding for the brand’ in DC. But back in Wyoming, the brand may be Trump
CASPER, Wyo. — Before she voted to impeach President Donald Trump, Rep. Liz Cheney could depend on votes from Jon Nicolaysen.
His family is ingrained into the DNA of Wyoming. P.C. Nicolaysen arrived around 1880, when the land was still a territory. He founded the Cole Creek Sheep Company in 1906 and passed it down to his son, who passed it down to Jon, who years ago told his father he was thinking of taking a job at Merrill Lynch in New York.
“He said, ‘Well, if you do that, I’ll sell the ranch,’” he recalled. “So I came back, and I’ve never regretted it.”
At 75, he doesn’t get out to the family ranch much now that his children run it, but he still knows where the cows get into the greasewood to give birth, where the prairie dogs burrow and, more recently, where the solar-powered water pumps, oil wells and windmills co-exist.
These days, Nicolaysen says he’s worried about inflation, border security and whether the government will take away his guns. In the past, he helped send Cheney to Congress to tackle those issues. But that’s one tradition he’s ready to break thanks to her leadership of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
“It’s time for a change,” said Nicolaysen, who plans for vote for Cheney’s opponent, Harriet Hageman. “Liz has taken on kind of a vendetta against Trump, and she’s forgotten the things that are important today.”
Wyoming GOP primary voters will decide Aug. 16 if Cheney knows what’s really important to them. On its face, the primary is about former President Trump’s
