Harriet Hageman | |
---|---|
![]() Official portrait, 2023 | |
Member of the U.S.HouseofRepresentatives from Wyoming's at-large district | |
Assumed office January 3, 2023 | |
Preceded by | Liz Cheney |
Personal details | |
Born | Harriet Maxine Hageman October 18,1962 Fort Laramie,Wyoming,U.S. |
Political party | Republican |
Spouse | John Sundahl |
Relatives | James Hageman (father) |
Education | University of Wyoming (BS,JD) |
Website | House website |
Harriet Maxine Hageman (born October 18, 1962) is an American politician and attorney serving as the U.S. representative for Wyoming's at-large congressional district since 2023. She is a member of the Republican Party.
A Wyoming native, Hageman holds degrees from the University of Wyoming and has spent her career as a trial attorney. She unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for governor of Wyoming in 2018 and later served as a member of the Republican National Committee. With the endorsement of former president Donald Trump, Hageman later defeated incumbent representative Liz Cheney, a Trump critic and vice chair of the House January 6 Committee, by a landslide in the 2022 Republican primary election, garnering over twice as many votes as Cheney while spending less than a quarter of Cheney's campaign expenditures. In a prior, less-politicized campaign for Governor, she received only one fifth of the vote.
Hageman was sworn into Congress on January 3, 2023. She is running for re-election in 2024. [1]
Harriet Maxine Hageman was born on a ranch outside of Fort Laramie, Wyoming, near the Nebraska border, on October 18, 1962. [2] [3] Her father, James Hageman, served as a longtime member of the Wyoming House of Representatives until his death in 2006. [4] She is a fourth-generation Wyomingite; her great-grandfather, James Clay Shaw, [5] moved to the then-Wyoming Territory from Texas in 1878. [6]
After graduating from Fort Laramie High School, Hageman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Wyoming and a Juris Doctor from the University of Wyoming College of Law. [7] [8]
Hageman served as a law clerk for Judge James E. Barrett of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She has since worked as a trial attorney. In 1997, Hageman represented Wyoming in Nebraska v. Wyoming, a dispute over management of the North Platte River. [9] [10] In the case, she advocated against the United States Forest Service's roadless rule and lost. [11] [12] [13] In the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, Hageman supported U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and criticized Donald Trump. [14]
Hageman was a candidate in the 2018 Wyoming gubernatorial election, placing third after investment manager Foster Friess and the eventual winner, state Treasurer Mark Gordon. Hageman was the Republican National Committeewoman for Wyoming in 2020 and 2021. [15]
On September 9, 2021, Hageman announced her candidacy for Wyoming's at-large congressional district, challenging three-term incumbent Liz Cheney for the Republican nomination in the 2022 election. In her campaign announcement, Hageman claimed that Cheney no longer represented the people of Wyoming due to her opposition to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and her vote to impeach him during Trump's second impeachment. Noting that Trump had carried Wyoming by landslide majorities in both of his campaigns, Hageman said that by opposing Trump, Cheney "betrayed Wyoming, she betrayed this country, and she betrayed me". [16] [17] She formally launched her campaign at a Cheyenne hotel later that day, saying that Wyoming needed someone in Congress "who represents Wyoming's conservative values" and had "Wyoming's best interests at heart". She also claimed that Cheney's drive to "destroy President Trump" made her ineffective in Washington. Two other primary challengers dropped out and endorsed Hageman. [18] She was quickly endorsed by Trump, who had personally interviewed several prospective primary challengers to Cheney. [19]
Hageman and Cheney had been close political allies for several years. Hageman was an adviser to Cheney's brief 2014 Senate campaign, [20] and introduced Cheney at a rally during Cheney's first congressional bid in 2016. [14] According to Hageman, the relationship cooled when Cheney criticized Trump for not acting on claims that Russia put bounties on American troops in Afghanistan and chilled even further when Cheney called for Trump to acknowledge that he had lost the 2020 election. [21] [18] Hageman claimed that when Cheney called her to say that any claims about irregularities in the 2020 election were untrue, "that was probably the end of our relationship". She added that had she known that Cheney would have voted to impeach Trump, she "never would have answered [Cheney's] first phone call" in 2016. [18] Hageman later claimed that Cheney and others had deceived her into opposing Trump but dismissed her previous opposition to Trump as "ancient history". [22] In a statement to The New York Times, she called Trump "the greatest president of my lifetime." [10]
Besides Trump, Hageman was endorsed by many other prominent Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. [23] [24] [25] She also received campaign support from several Trump administration staffers, including Bill Stepien, Justin R. Clark, and Tim Murtaugh. [26] In January 2022, it was reported that Hageman's campaign had raised $1 million, to Cheney's $4.5 million. [27]
Hageman raced out to a large lead in opinion polling. A University of Wyoming poll taken a week before the election showed Hageman with a 29-point lead over Cheney. [28] She defeated Cheney in the Republican primary in a landslide, [29] winning 66.3% of the vote to Cheney's 28.9%. Hageman carried all but two counties in the state, Cheney's home county of Teton County, and Albany County, home to the University of Wyoming.
In the general election, Hageman faced Democratic nominee and Native American activist Lynnette Grey Bull, who was Cheney's opponent in 2020. Hageman was overwhelmingly favored. [20] Republicans had a nearly 7-to-1 advantage in registration over Democrats, [30] and Trump won the state in 2020 with 70% of the vote, his strongest state-level performance in the nation.
Hageman won the 2022 election handily, defeating Grey Bull, 67% to 24%. Upon taking office in 2023, she became the fourth consecutive Republican woman to represent Wyoming in the House, after Barbara Cubin, Cynthia Lummis, and Cheney.
In the contested 2023 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election, though many of Hageman's colleagues in the Freedom Caucus refused to support Kevin McCarthy, Hageman backed him on every ballot. [31]
Source: [32]
Hageman calls herself an "unyielding conservative". During her gubernatorial campaign, she claimed that government was too pervasive in American lives, to the point that it was replacing "community, the organizations you belong to, and family support." [6] Along similar lines, during her congressional campaign, she highlighted her past work in "defending our great state against the excess of government". [17] She argued that as part of her plan to "protect Wyoming", her priorities would be "energy independence, regulatory reform, restor[ing] power to the states, protection of our southern border and enforcement of our immigration laws." She added that while in Congress, she would "focus on what is in the best interest of the United States, and, specifically, what is in the best interest of Wyoming." [18] She believes the framers of the Constitution intended for "the Legislative Branch—and only the Legislative Branch" to make law. [33]
Hageman is a vocal supporter of the fossil fuel industry, saying at an August 2022 campaign event that coal is an "affordable, clean, acceptable resource that we all should be using". [34]
Speaking about presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in July 2024, Hageman called Harris "a DEI hire" (a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives) who is "intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel". [35]
In 2023, Hageman was among 47 Republicans to vote in favor of H. Congressional Resolution 21, which directed President Joe Biden to remove U.S. troops from Syria within 180 days. [36] [37]
Hageman was among the 71 Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 in the House. [38]
Hageman is married to Cheyenne-based medical malpractice defense attorney John Sundahl. [39] She is Protestant. [40]
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Republican | Mark Gordon | 38,951 | 33.0 | |
Republican | Foster Friess | 29,842 | 25.3 | |
Republican | Harriet Hageman | 25,052 | 21.2 | |
Republican | Sam Galeotos | 14,554 | 12.3 | |
Republican | Taylor Haynes | 6,511 | 5.5 | |
Republican | Bill Dahlin | 1,763 | 1.5 | |
n/a | Under votes | 1,269 | 1.1 | |
Republican | Write-ins | 113 | 0.0 | |
n/a | Over votes | 46 | 0.0 | |
Total votes | 118,101 | 100.0 |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Republican | Harriet Hageman | 113,025 | 66.3 | |
Republican | Liz Cheney (incumbent) | 49,316 | 28.9 | |
Republican | Anthony Bouchard | 4,505 | 2.6 | |
Republican | Denton Knapp | 2,258 | 1.3 | |
Republican | Robyn Belinskey | 1,305 | 0.8 | |
Total votes | 170,409 | 100.0 |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Republican | Harriet Hageman | 132,206 | 66.7 | |
Democratic | Lynnette Grey Bull | 47,250 | 23.8 | |
Libertarian | Richard Brubaker | 5,420 | 2.7 | |
n/a | Write-Ins | 4,521 | 2.3 | |
Constitution | Marissa Selvig | 4,505 | 2.3 | |
n/a | Under votes | 3,660 | 1.8 | |
n/a | Over votes | 636 | 0.3 | |
Total votes | 198,198 | 100.0 |
Lisa Ann Murkowski is an American attorney and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Alaska, having held the seat since 2002. She is the first woman to represent Alaska in the Senate and the Senate's second-most senior Republican woman, after Susan Collins of Maine. She became dean of Alaska's congressional delegation upon Representative Don Young's death.
Nancy Ruth Mace is an American politician who has been the U.S. representative for South Carolina's 1st congressional district since 2021. Her district includes much of the state's share of the East Coast, from Charleston to Hilton Head Island.
Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is an American attorney and politician. She represented Wyoming's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2017 to 2023, and served as chair of the House Republican Conference—the third-highest position in the House Republican leadership—from 2019 to 2021. Cheney is known for her vocal opposition to former President Donald Trump. As of March 2023, she is a professor of practice at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Jefferson H. Van Drew is an American politician and dentist serving as the U.S. representative for New Jersey's 2nd congressional district since 2019. Formerly a Democrat, he has been a member of the Republican Party since 2020.
Cynthia Marie Lummis Wiederspahn is an American attorney and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Wyoming since 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Lummis served as the U.S representative for Wyoming's at-large congressional district from 2009 to 2017. She served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1979 to 1983 and from 1985 to 1993, in the Wyoming Senate from 1993 to 1995, and as the Wyoming State Treasurer from 1999 to 2007.
Elise Marie Stefanik is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for New York's 21st congressional district. As chair of the House Republican Conference since 2021, she is the fourth-ranking House Republican. Stefanik's district covers most of the North Country and the Adirondack Mountains, some of the outer suburbs of Utica and the Capital District in New York. In addition to being the first woman to occupy her House seat, Stefanik was 30 when first elected to the House in 2014, making her the youngest woman elected to Congress at the time.
The 2020 United States Senate election in Wyoming was held on November 3, 2020, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Wyoming, concurrently with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. Cynthia Lummis defeated Democrat Merav Ben-David by more than 46 percentage points, becoming the first female U.S. Senator from Wyoming and succeeding fellow Republican Mike Enzi, who did not run for reelection. This was the first open Senate seat since 1996, when Enzi was first elected. The Democratic and Republican party primary elections were held on August 18, 2020. This was the first time since 1996 that Democrats won any county for this seat. Enzi died aged 77 on July 26, 2021, from injuries in a bicycle accident, less than seven months after his retirement from the Senate.
Chuck Gray is an American politician and the secretary of state of Wyoming, having won the 2022 election unopposed. Gray was previously a member of the Wyoming House of Representatives representing the 57th District.
Anthony Bouchard is an American politician serving as a member of the Wyoming Senate from the 6th district since 2017, as a member of the Republican Party. Bouchard was previously a candidate in the 2022 United States House of Representatives election in Wyoming.
Dustin Michael Johnson is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for South Dakota's at-large congressional district since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served as South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner from 2005 to 2011, when he was appointed chief of staff to Governor Dennis Daugaard, a position he held until 2014. Between his state political career and congressional service, Johnson was the vice president of Vantage Point Solutions in Mitchell, South Dakota.
Elissa Blair Slotkin is an American politician serving as a U.S. representative for Michigan's 7th congressional district since 2019. The district, numbered as the 8th from 2019 to 2023, stretches from Lansing to the outer northern suburbs of Detroit. A member of the Democratic Party, Slotkin was previously a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst and Department of Defense official.
Christina Marie "Chrissy" Houlahan is an American politician, engineer, and former United States Air Force officer. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the U.S. representative from Pennsylvania's 6th congressional district. The district includes almost all of Chester County, a suburban county west of Philadelphia, as well as the southern portion of Berks County including the city of Reading. She was first elected in 2018, defeating Republican Greg McCauley in the midterms.
The 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Michigan were held on November 8, 2022, to elect representatives for the thirteen seats in Michigan. The deadline for candidates to file for the August 2 primary was April 19. The congressional makeup prior to the election was seven Democrats and seven Republicans. However, after the 2020 census, Michigan lost one congressional seat. Democrats won a majority of seats in the state for the first time since 2008. This can be partly attributed to the decrease in the number of districts, which resulted in two Republican incumbents – Bill Huizenga and Fred Upton – in the new 4th district. Redistricting also played a part in shifting partisan lean of the districts which favored the Democrats overall, including in the 3rd district, which Democrats were able to flip with a margin of victory of 13 points. That was made possible by a non-partisan citizens' commission drawing the new political boundaries instead of the Michigan legislature after a 2018 ballot proposal was approved.
The 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in South Carolina were held on November 8, 2022, to elect the seven U.S. representatives from the state of South Carolina, one from each of the state's seven congressional districts. The elections coincided with other elections to the House of Representatives, elections to the United States Senate and various state and local elections.
Lisa Carmella McClain is an American politician serving as a U.S. representative from Michigan since 2021, representing the state's 9th congressional district since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, McClain serves in congressional leadership as Secretary of the House Republican Conference.
The 2022 United States House of Representatives election in Wyoming was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the U.S. representative for Wyoming's at-large congressional district. The election coincided with other elections to the House of Representatives, elections to the United States Senate, and various state and local elections.
Max Leonard Miller is an American Republican politician and former aide to Donald Trump. A member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he has been the U.S. representative for Ohio's 7th congressional district since 2023.
The 2022 Wyoming elections took place on November 8, 2022. The statewide direct primary election was held on August 16, 2022. Wyoming voters elected Wyoming's seat to the United States House of Representatives, all of the seats of the Wyoming House of Representatives, all even-numbered seats of the Wyoming Senate, governor of Wyoming, and various statewide offices.
The 2022 Wyoming Secretary of State election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the Secretary of State of Wyoming. On April 18, 2022, incumbent Republican Edward Buchanan announced that he would run for re-election, but on May 17 he reversed this decision, choosing not to seek a second term. State Representative Chuck Gray won the Republican nomination on August 16 with the backing of former president Donald Trump. He is a supporter of Trump's claim that he won the 2020 election. Gray was unopposed in the general election.
The state party convention portion of the 2024 Wyoming Republican presidential caucuses was held from April 18 to 20, 2024, as part of the Republican Party primaries for the 2024 presidential election. 23 delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention were selected at county conventions, between February and March, while six delegates were selected at the state convention. However, all 29 delegates were allocated to candidates at the state convention.