First on CNN: Liz Cheney to abandon Senate bid By John King and Peter Hamby, CNN January 6, 2014 -- Updated 0439 GMT (1239 HKT) Liz Cheney holds a news conference in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on July 17. Sources tell CNN that Liz Cheney is dropping out of her heated Senate race Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi first won the Senate seat in 1996 The contest caused bitter feelings in Republican Party and in Cheney family New York (CNN) -- Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday. Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an official announcement about the race as early as Monday. Cheney's surprising decision to jump into the race, an announcement made in a YouTube video last summer, roiled Republican politics in the Wyoming, a state Dick Cheney represented in Congress for five terms before moving up the Republican food chain in Washington. Enzi was a low-key presence in Washington who was elected in 1996 and, with few blemishes, amassed a conservative voting record in the Senate. He expressed public annoyance at Cheney's decision to mount a primary challenge. A number of his Senate colleagues quickly rallied to his side and pledged support for his re-election bid. There was little public polling of the race, but two partisan polls released last year showed Enzi with a wide lead, an assessment mostly shared by GOP insiders watching the race. Cheney's campaign got off to a rocky start. Her critics labeled her a carpetbagger, noting that she moved to Wyoming only in 2012 after relocating from Virginia. The issue flared in August after the Wyoming media reported that Cheney improperly received a fishing license despite not living in the state for at least a year, as the law requires. Grabbing even more attention was her very public dispute with her sister, Mary, over the issue of same-sex marriage. Mary Cheney, who is a lesbian, took to Facebook in November to object to Liz's opposition to same-sex marriage, claiming that her sister has previously supported her relationship while saying something very different on the campaign trail. The dispute prompted their parents to weigh in, saying they were "pained" to see the sisters battle over a private matter in full view of the news media. Beyond the campaign missteps, Cheney's election effort, vigorously supported by her father and his allies, often felt out-of-tune with the small-government conservative sentiment that has fueled other Republican primary challengers. Cheney, like her father, is an unapologetic neoconservative who favors muscular use of American military power overseas, a policy that does not sit well with many grassroots conservatives, particularly in the libertarian-leaning West. Cheney 'surprised' by public spat between daughters Five Senate races to watch in 2014