Fact Check: Is Donald Trump right about his Liz Cheney claim?

Donald Trump and former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney have been engaged in a war of words over her new memoir, in which she criticizes the former president and other Republicans.

Among Cheney’s claims is that then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Trump became depressed and stopped eating after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, which Trump has denied.

Trump has since hit back in a series of messages including one that said she lost her Congressional seat by the largest margin in history.

The Claim

A post by Donald Trump on Truth Social on Wednesday, December 6, stated that Liz Cheney “lost her Congressional Seat by the largest margin EVER.”

“She [Cheney] just lost her Congressional Seat by the largest margin EVER, now is desperately looking for something else to do. Her unhinged statements are becoming a THREAT TO DEMOCRACY! DJT”

In an earlier message about Cheney, Trump on Monday posted on Truth Social that she “lost her seat in Congress by the largest margin for a sitting Congressperson in the history of the U.S.”

The Facts

Results from the 2022 Republican primary for the U.S. House Wyoming at-large District, show Cheney lost to Trump-backed Harriet Hageman with 28.9 percent to 66.3 percent—a 37.4-point difference. Hageman went on to win the seat.

Trump’s post refers only to the election performance of incumbent members of Congress.

Cheney’s margin of loss appeared to actually be the second-largest for an incumbent in the past 60 years in a straight primary election, CNN analysis done in 2022 of election data from Harvard shows.

The biggest loss occurred during a runoff, as noted by The Washington Post, in which only the top two candidates from the first vote were on the ballot.

Then Representative Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican, faced a runoff with Trey Gowdy in a 2010 primary after no candidate secured a majority (Inglis lost the initial vote 28 percent to 39 percent—an 11-point difference). Inglis lost the runoff by 41 points (70.66 percent to 29.34).

Cheney won the Republican primary with wider margins than Hageman achieved, in the 2020 (47 percentage points) and 2018 (46 points) contests.

Newsweek has contacted media representatives for Trump for comment and has reached out to Cheney via the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

The Ruling

True.

Donald Trump’s claim is largely correct.

Cheney’s margin of loss was the second-largest for a House incumbent in a primary in the past 60 years; however, the larger loss occurred in a runoff.

The only other incumbent to lose by a wider margin was South Carolina Republican Bob Inglis, who lost in 2010 by 40 points to Trey Gowdy in the runoff. Inglis trailed Gowdy by 11 points in the initial vote.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team