Paul’s pick to replace retiring four-term GOP Rep. Cynthia Lummis is Wyoming state Sen. Leland Christensen. | Getty Rand Paul backs Liz Cheney's primary challenger The Kentucky senator has long feuded with former Vice President Dick Cheney and is now backing a candidate over Cheney’s daughter in Wyoming's House primary.

Rand Paul is taking another stand in 2016, this time by endorsing one of Liz Cheney’s opponents just days before a wide-open House Republican primary in Wyoming.

The Kentucky senator has a long-standing feud going with Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and that disagreement is again coming to the surface on the eve of an eight-way congressional contest that Paul wants to make into a referendum on the George W. Bush administration’s foreign policies.


Paul’s pick to replace retiring four-term GOP Rep. Cynthia Lummis is Wyoming state Sen. Leland Christensen, a former sheriff, county commissioner and Army special operations forces soldier.

In a telephone interview with POLITICO on Sunday night, Paul got in several digs at Dick Cheney’s record on war, torture and government spending while offering his endorsement to Christensen.

“It’s important that there are different varieties of Republicans,” Paul said. “I think there are big government Republicans who believe that they want sort of an imperial presidency that can take us to war anywhere and everywhere at any time.”

“And then there are those of us who believe that the Constitution was very explicit that the power to go to war was given to the legislature and was secondary to debate, that we’d have significant debate over going to war, that things like going to the Geneva Convention are important, that torturing prisoners is not something that’s acceptable, that deficits do matter,” Paul added.

This is Liz Cheney’s second attempt at elected office. Her 2013 campaign against incumbent GOP Sen. Mike Enzi bottomed out months before the primary, amid criticism she’d only recently moved to Wyoming from Virginia.

Now, Cheney is seen as the front-runner in her bid to win the at-large House seat that her father held nearly 30 years ago. The former high-ranking State Department official from the Bush administration has the financial backing of many of her father’s closest associates, including former President George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld.

A July poll by the Casper Star-Tribune and Wyoming PBS put Cheney ahead in the GOP primary with 21 percent of the vote, though more than half of the state’s Republicans also said they were undecided. While Christensen in that survey was ranked third behind state GOP House leader Tim Stubson, Paul nonetheless insisted that he saw the primary as a two-person race between Cheney and Christensen.

“As much as I like to lament polls and say they’re not right, they do have some validity,” Paul said. “So we’ve looked at it. It’s nothing against the other candidates. We just made a decision that this is the best chance for a constitutional conservative.”

Paul also took a swing at Liz Cheney over her residency, even though she’s lived in Jackson Hole since 2012.

“I think it’s important to actually live out there,” the senator said. “I think that’ll also be a question whether people are actually from Wyoming or coming in from Virginia and places like that.”

Paul said he didn’t plan to campaign in person in Wyoming for Christensen before Tuesday’s primary, but he intended to make the rounds with state media and spread word about his endorsement across the state by emailing all of the state’s Republicans and reaching out via Facebook and Twitter

“I wish I could have gotten there but I’m running for election in Kentucky. I’ve got things I’ve got to do here at home,” Paul said, referring to his general election race against Democrat Jim Gray. Paul holds a 12-point lead in his bid for a second term, according to a GOP poll released earlier this month.

Paul has backed several Republicans since ending his own unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign, including his former GOP foe Donald Trump for the White House and House GOP candidates Christopher Peters in Iowa, Danny Tarkanian in Nevada and Jason Lewis in Minnesota.

The senator also has backed a couple of unsuccessful 2016 candidates: Rep. Marlin Stutzman, who lost in the Indiana GOP Senate primary, and Georgia’s Paul Broun, who failed in a comeback attempt for his old House seat.