By all available information, Rep. Liz Cheney is about to lose her primary in Wyoming. Cheney, who has spearheaded the January 6th committee and has made her entire Washington persona about Donald Trump for the last several years, is down double digits against Harriet Hageman with the election set for August, 16th.

That has led to desperation, with former Vice President Dick Cheney being called in to do a last-minute ad campaign. It was almost surreal to see Democrats who used to accuse him of being a war criminal now celebrate his “honesty” as he proclaims Donald Trump the greatest threat the nation has ever seen. No, that’s not hyperbole. He actually said that, ignoring the Civil War and a myriad of presidents who have ranged the gambit from interning people to murdering them.

Yet, the move only underscored Cheney’s problems. When everything centers around Trump, is it any wonder that Republican voters would look elsewhere for someone that cares about their actual problems? Predictably, though, the Wyoming representative isn’t admitting her own missteps. Instead, she’s employing a team of Republican insiders to execute an unworkable ploy to pull out an unlikely victory.

New: A fmr Trump WH aide and the chair of a top R research firm are behind a last minute, under-the-radar effort to save Liz Cheney

Through two seemingly unrelated orgs, they're pushing Ds to cross over and attacking her challenger's pro-Trump bona fides https://t.co/3Ul3uUWaaF

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) August 4, 2022

What’s happening: Two seemingly unrelated political groups recently popped up to try to beat back Hageman’s challenge.

• Wyomingites Defending Freedom and Democracy is running digital and television ads and encouraging Democrats in the state to cross party lines and vote for Cheney in the Aug. 16 primary.
• Conservatives for a Strong America is portraying Hageman as a fake conservative secretly in league with Cheney and critical of Trump.
• The latter group is also trying to boost two of Cheney’s other primary challengers in an apparent effort to split the anti-Cheney vote.

The idea of getting Democrats to cross over and vote for Cheney isn’t new. I critiqued it way back in June after her campaign started sending out mailers pushing the plan. As I said then, the numbers don’t add up. There are simply not enough Democrats in the state, even if they all voted in the GOP primary, to save her. The only way that changes is if Cheney sees a surge among Republicans that get her within striking distance first, and there’s no evidence that’s going to happen.

According to the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website, there are 193,000 registered Republicans in the state. In contrast, there are 44,000 registered Democrats. You do the math on that, but it’s not good for Cheney. It’s also a pipe dream that she’d even pull every Democrat voter to her side. There are plenty of voters on the left who still think the Cheneys are evil incarnate, going back to the Bush years.

In other words, these GOP groups are wasting their money, which is wholly typical. They know and Cheney knows that her goose is cooked and that there is no path. But political campaigns are nothing if they aren’t blatant grifts. The money keeps flowing out until the last vote is counted.

Once Cheney officially loses, her belligerence will only get worse. She will drag this January 6th thing out until she can’t anymore, which will be the moment she leaves office. After that, it’s cable news hits and fundraising for her coming failed presidential campaign. As I said, it’s all a scam. She knows she has no shot in 2024, but there are going to be a lot of donors, including Democrats, who will want to see her go up against Trump. Certainly, if nothing else, it’ll be entertaining.