Washington -
Liz Cheney, daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, said on Tuesday she will run as a Republican for US Senate in Wyoming next year.
“Today I am launching my candidacy for the US Senate,” she said in a video posted on YouTube.
Conservative values are under assault by “a federal government grown far beyond anything the pioneers of this great state could ever have imagined,” said Cheney, referring to people who settled Wyoming, a western US state.
She pointed to concerns about government debt and spending and took President Barack Obama to task for his healthcare reforms, efforts to toughen gun laws and other policies.
Cheney, 46, will challenge Senator Mike Enzi, 69, in the Republican primary, setting up a high-profile intra-party showdown ahead of November 2014 elections that are seen as a key test for Obama's Democratic Party and opposition Republicans. Enzi has served as senator since 1997 and plans to run for another six-year term.
She served in the State Department while her father was vice president from 2001-2009 under president George W Bush and was active in her father's election campaigns. She has also worked as political commentator and founded a non-profit group focussed on national security issues. The trained lawyer and her husband have five children.
Dick Cheney was an influential voice in many of president the Bush administration's actions in Iraq and in its anti-terrorism efforts. He served as congressman from Wyoming from 1979-1989. - Sapa-dpa