Fact-Checking Cheney’s Odd Concession Speech Where She Compares Herself to the “Loser” Lincoln

Liz Cheney: "Abraham Lincoln was defeated in elections for the Senate and House before he won the most important election of all…” pic.twitter.com/3bIFVv2Ch0

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 17, 2022

We’ll even use Snopes, a left-wing site, for the fact-checking.

1843: Ran for Congress – lost.

One could claim this as a Lincoln failure in that he wanted to be a Congressman and failed to achieve that goal, but it is technically inaccurate to claim that he “ran for Congress” in 1843 and lost: The election was held in 1844, and Lincoln was not a candidate in that election. Lincoln’s failure to achieve his party’s nomination at the May 1843 Whig district convention is undoubtedly what is referred to here.

1848: Ran for re-election to Congress – lost.

Lincoln did not “lose” the 1848 election. He did not run for re-election because Whig policy at the time specified that party members should step aside after serving one term to allow other members to take their turns at holding office. Lincoln, a faithful party member, complied.

1854: Ran for Senate of the United States – lost.

In Lincoln’s time, U.S. senators were not elected through direct popular vote; they were appointed by state legislatures. In Illinois, voters cast ballots only for state legislators, and the General Assembly of the state legislature then selected nominees to fill open U.S. Senate seats. So, in 1854 (and again in 1856) Lincoln was not technically running for the Senate; he was campaigning on behalf of Whig candidates for state legislature seats all throughout Illinois. Nonetheless, after the 1854 state election, Lincoln made it known that he sought the open U.S. Senate seat for Illinois. The first ballot of a divided General Assembly was taken in February 1855, and Lincoln received the most votes but was six votes shy of the requisite majority. When the process remained deadlocked after another eight ballots, Lincoln withdrew from the race to lend his support to another candidate and ensure that the Senate seat did not go to a pro-slavery Democrat.

1856: Sought the Vice-Presidential nomination at his party’s national convention – got less than 100 votes.

This is both misleading and inaccurate. Lincoln did not “seek” the vice-presidential nomination at the 1856 Republican national convention in Philadelphia; his name was put into nomination by the Illinois delegation after most national delegates were already committed to other candidates. (Lincoln himself was back in Illinois, not at the convention, and did not know he had been nominated until friends brought him the news.) Nonetheless, in an informal ballot, Lincoln received 110 votes out of 363, not at all a bad showing for someone who was little known outside his home state.

1858: Ran for U.S. Senate again – again he lost.

Again, Lincoln was not directly campaigning for a Senate seat, although it was a foregone conclusion that he would be the Republicans’ choice to take Stephen Douglas’ U.S. Senate seat if his party won control of the Illinois state legislature. Lincoln actually bested Douglas in the sense that Republican legislative candidates statewide received slightly over 50% of the popular vote, but the Republicans failed to gain control of the state legislature, and Douglas therefore retained his seat in the Senate.

As for Liz Cheney’s claims that Lincoln was a loser before ascending to the presidency, we rate this 10 Potatoes. (That’s ten Brian Stelters. That’s not good.)