Voters go to the polls in four states on Tuesday for primaries that will set up key Senate races and resolve other intraparty battles, including a race that features a rioter at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and another with a police officer who fought off the rioters that day.
Maryland, West Virginia and Nebraska are holding primaries, and North Carolina is holding runoffs for races in which candidates did not receive a majority of votes in the March primary.
Former President Donald Trump’s endorsement is on the line in West Virginia, where he has shaped the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. And Trump is sure to score two support victories in North Carolina, where two of his preferred House candidates — lobbyist Addison McDowell and lawyer Brad Knott — are the only candidates left in two primary runoffs after their opponents have closed. your campaigns.
Meanwhile, some Republican lawmakers are trying to fend off challengers from their right in the primaries, and a handful of open seats in Maryland will also help shape the Democratic caucus next year.
Polls close at 7:30 PM ET in West Virginia and North Carolina, 8:00 PM ET in Maryland, and 9:00 PM ET in Nebraska. Here are four things to watch out for.
Clashes in the Senate race
Republicans are eyeing possible comebacks in typically blue Maryland and red West Virginia as they aim to flip the Senate this year.
Manchin’s retirement makes West Virginia, which Trump won by 39 points in 2020, a much easier target for the Republican Party. The Republican primaries have still been a battle and will test Trump’s influence with primary voters.
Trump endorsed Republican Gov. Jim Justice early in the race, as did the National Republican Senatorial Committee. But Rep. Alex Mooney didn’t give up, receiving a big boost on the airwaves from Club for Growth Action, the political action committee of the conservative Club for Growth.
Mooney and the Growth Club I tried to paint Justice as a liberal who raised taxes, while Justice praised his work as governor. The court also emphasized Trump’s endorsement of each of your TV ads.
Three candidates are vying for the Democratic nomination: Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott, Navy veteran and organizer Zachary Shrewsbury and Don Blankenship, a former coal baron who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for Senate in 2018. Blankenship spent a year in arrest for violating mine safety rules after an explosion in one of his company’s mines.
Maryland’s Senate race will also be decided on Tuesday, and the race could be crucial to control of the Senate if former Gov. Larry Hogan prevails in the GOP primary. Republicans touted Hogan, who was twice elected statewide in the traditionally Democratic state, as a top recruit, and he was quickly endorsed by the NRSC.
Hogan, a vocal Trump critic, is in the primary against Robin Ficker, a perennial candidate who self-funds his campaign. Although Ficker made many unsuccessful bids, he outspent Hogan on the airwaves, launching ads saying Ficker would “support President Trump.”
The NRSC teamed up with Hogan on advertising, releasing spots focused on immigrationan important issue for Republican Party primary voters.
Hogan’s entry into the race has shaken up the Democratic primary between Rep. David Trone and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, both of whom argue they can keep the seat in November.
Trone, who has the support of notable House members and the state teachers union, has blanketed the airwaves with TV ads. He lent his campaign more than $60 million, leveraging his personal fortune as founder of the retail chain Total Wine & More.
Alsobrooks, who would be the state’s first Black senator, has the support of Gov. Wes Moore, Sen. Chris Van Hollen and other members of the congressional delegation. She received a late boost on the airwaves from EMILY’s List, a group that supports female candidates who support abortion rights.
Senate showdowns will also take place in deep-red Nebraska. Republican Senator Pete Ricketts is running to serve the final two years of former Senator Ben Sasse’s term after being appointed to the Senate last year. The only Democrat competing to hire him is Preston Love Jr., an adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha.
Democrats have not fielded a candidate to face Republican Senator Deb Fischer, who is running for a third term. Therefore, she is expected to face independent Dan Osborne, a union leader, in November.
House Republicans face challengers from the right
Several House Republicans face primary challengers to their right. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of 17 Republicans representing districts Joe Biden won in 2020, faces businessman Dan Frei in the Omaha-based 2nd District.
Frei has the support of the state Republican Party, which did not endorse any member of the state’s parliamentary delegation and instead supported three main opponents. Bacon and an allied super PAC funded by Ricketts outspent Frei in the race, and Bacon expressed confidence that he will prevail on Tuesday.
If Bacon wins the primary, he will face a rematch against Democratic State Senator Tony Vargas, who lost to him by 3 points in 2022. Democrats are optimistic about Bacon’s defeat in a presidential year, with abortion expected to be a major issue for voters (and how Bacon touted his endorsement of anti-abortion rights groups in your primary).
In West Virginia’s 1st District, Miller faces former state Del. Derrick Evans in the Republican primary.
Evans was convicted of a felony for storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He praised his actions on January 6 in a TV ad, saying he “stood alongside President Trump to peacefully and patriotically protest the stolen election ”, and stated that he was held “hostage” as a “political prisoner”. (Evans pleaded guilty to one count of criminal civil disorder in March 2022.)
Miller, who outspent Evans on the airwaves, cited his previous candidacy as a Democrat. Miller also released an ad with Trump praising her, even though Trump didn’t endorse it in the primaries.
Former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn Runs for Congress
Tuesday’s primary also includes a face that may be familiar to those who watched testimony during the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol: former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who is running in the 3rd open district of Maryland.
The seat, which is being vacated by retiring Democratic Rep. Paul Sarbanes, is in a Democratic-leaning area, meaning the winner of the primary will be the front-runner in November. Dunn was the top fundraiser in the race with several million dollars, allowing him to spend more than $2 million on ads, according to AdImpact, including on ads that highlight your actions on January 6.
The United Democracy Project, a super PAC aligned with the pro-Israel American Public Affairs Committee, spent more than $3.5 million to boost state Sen. Sarah Elfreth. The group’s advertisements do not focus on issues related to Israel, but on abortion It is health care. Dunn’s campaign tried to fight back, highlighting how the UDP depends in part on Republican donors (an attack to which the UDP responded with an announcement of its own, saying Dunn should be “ashamed of yourself”).
There is also a competitive and crowded primary in Maryland’s 6th District to replace Trone in the House. Democrats include April McLain Delaney (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce and wife of former Representative John Delaney), State Delegate Joe Vogel, Hagerstown Mayor Tekesha Martinez and Montgomery County Council member, Laurie-Anne Sayles. And in the Republican primary, 2022 GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox and former state Del. Neil Parrott are the frontrunners.
The retirement of Democratic Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger is opening up another Democratic-leaning seat — Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski and Del. state Harry Bhandari are among the leading candidates in that race, while the Republican field includes Kimberly Klacik, a pro-Trump radio personality who was the GOP nominee in a different Maryland congressional district in 2020.
Brutal West Virginia gubernatorial primary
The race to replace Justice has been wild and brutal, with a crowded field that includes powerful politicians and descendants of well-known political families in the state.
There doesn’t appear to be a clear favorite in the crowded field. The candidates include two state officeholders, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Secretary of State Mac Warner, and two sons of Republican members of Congress from West Virginia – former state representative Moore Capito, son of Senator Shelley Moore Capito, and businessman Chris Miller, son of Congresswoman Carol Miller. (Tuesday’s elections are a family affair, as Riley Moore, the senator’s nephew and cousin of the former state representative, is also running for a seat in the Chamber.)
There was a flurry of advertising spending – more than $33 million from candidates and outside groups. Justice weighed in, supporting Capito, but Trump did not choose a candidate.
The advertising wars have become particularly nasty. A group supporting Morrisey ran a series of different ads chastising trans people and accusing Miller It is Moura to be allies of the LGBTQ community. A group supporting Miller compares Morrisey to a pig before making similar anti-transgender arguments against Morrisey. And a group supporting Capito exploded Morrisey’s lobbying work and argued that he “profited from Big Pharma when they sold their poisonous pills.”
The silver lining for Republicans, however, is that whoever makes it through the confusing primaries will be heavily favored against Huntington Mayor Steve Williamsthe only Democrat in the race.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
