Liz Cheney is very likely headed to Congress

Liz Cheney, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, handily won Wyoming's Republican primary for an open house seat Tuesday night, getting 40 percent of the vote in a crowded field of nine candidates. State Sen. Leland Christensen, who scored a late endorsement from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), came in second, with 22 percent of the vote. Cheney, a former State Department official and Fox News contributor, was mostly raised in Virginia but bought a House in Wyoming in 2012, shortly before a brief run for U.S. Senate; she raised about $1.5 million in the race, or about 10 times what her next three biggest rivals raised.

No Democrat has occupied Wyoming's lone U.S. House seat since before Dick Cheney first won the it in 1979, and with the GOP's 3-to-1 voter registration advantage, Liz Cheney is expected to beat Democrat Ryan Greene in November. Greene, who works for his family's oil-services company, was bullish about his chances after winning his primary Tuesday night. "This just became Wyoming versus Washington," he said. "The Cheneys are Washington." Liz Cheney, who spent three years of her childhood in Casper, says she will focus on national security and protecting Wyoming's coal industry from Washington regulation.