RENO, Nev. (AP) – Retired Army Captain. Sam Brown hopes late approval of former President Donald Trump will help him deliver victory in Tuesday’s Republican state Senate primary and give him the momentum he needs to win a general election that Republicans view as one of their better chance of winning a seat in a very divided party. bedroom.
The winner of Tuesday’s Republican senatorial primary will face the incumbent Democratic senator. Jackie Rosen in a fierce Senate race.
Rosen, a moderate who is defending her seat in a state that could also play an important role in the presidential race, is one of the Republicans’ top targets in 2024. Democrats are defend far more Senate seats than Republicans this year, including open seats in the swing states of Michigan and Arizona and seats held by incumbent Democrats in the competitive states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as well as Nevada .
Republicans also hope to win seats currently held by Democrats in red areas of Montana, Ohio and West Virginia.
Brown, a Purple Heart recipient who was wounded while serving in Afghanistan, has long been considered the GOP front-runner in a congested primary field Since he announced his candidacy last summer, less than a year after losing his bid to challenge Nevada’s other Democratic senator in the western battleground state.
He was heavily recruited by Washington, D.C. Republicans and received the endorsement of the National Republican Senatorial Committee as soon as he announced his candidacy.
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National Republicans have deliberately tried to avoid a repeat of their lackluster performance in the 2022 midterm elections, when Democrats outperformed expectations and retained their fragile Senate majority.
Before he can take on Rosen, who faces token opposition from two Democratic primary challengers, Brown must stand up to a large group of primary opponents who have criticized him for skipping debates and presented as the establishment’s hand-picked candidate. The criticism echoes campaign themes Brown proposed two years ago, when he was seen as the insurgent candidate against former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt. Laxalt won the GOP primary but lost to the Democratic senator. Catherine Cortés Masto.
Among the twelve Republican candidates this year, we find Trump’s former ambassador to Iceland, a dermatologist. Jeff Gunterwho billed himself as “110% pro-Trump” and named Brown as the establishment’s choice.
Also in the race is Jim Marchant, who ran for secretary of state in 2022 on an election denial platform driven by Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential race was stolen. Marchant raised his national profile in 2022 as the organizer of a coalition of 17 Republican candidates who falsely challenged the election outcome. Every elected official in Nevada since 2006, he said, has been “installed by the deep state cabal.”
Brown, who was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan that scarred his face, has made military service central to his message this campaign cycle, just as he did during his unsuccessful campaign in the 2022 Senate.
During campaign stops, he often recounted the explosion and the dozens of surgeries that followed, touting the leadership skills he learned in the military and the Christian faith that sustained him throughout of his convalescence.
Trump’s support Sunday further bolstered a candidate who already enjoyed a substantial fundraising lead over his opponents. Trump has repeatedly said he likes many candidates in the race and teased their support for weeks before formally announcing his support for Brown.