All face challenging roads to reelection, particularly Rep. Liz Cheney, the most outspoken of them, who has enraged so many Wyoming Republicans that they are plotting to alter state election laws to cut off one potential route to political survival.

But they spent 2021 priming for battle, stockpiling campaign cash, seeing which local activists could be mollified and, in some cases, preparing for their first tough election in years. Two of Cheney’s colleagues will have to face far-right challengers in the summer and then try to hang onto Democratic-leaning districts in the fall. Another might have to battle both a fellow Republican incumbent and a Trump-backed state representative to secure the GOP nomination — if he doesn’t retire first. And thanks to all-party primary and runoff laws in different states, two others might have to beat the same opponent twice to remain in Congress…

“It was getting a little embarrassing — all them crawling down to Mar-a-Lago begging for endorsements,” Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) cracked, shortly after Trump backed a challenger in his primary. “Probably all those candidates are going to have to have the knees on their pants replaced by patches, from all that crawling.”