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Former President Trump’s immense hold on the Republican Party is up for grabs again as five states from the Midwest to the West Coast hold primaries on Tuesday.
High-profile gubernatorial, Senate and House nomination contests are on the ballot in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington.
Also in the spotlight, three House Republicans who voted to impeach the then-president over the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol are fighting for their political lives as they face Trump-backed challengers, a proxy war between Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence and a member of the so-called “Squad” of progressive and diverse House Democrats faces a primary challenge.
Kansas voters will weigh in on abortion in the first ballot test since the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned the landmark Roe v.
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Former President Trump applauds at a rally in support of Arizona Republican candidates on July 22, 2022 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Arizona’s primary election will take place on August 2nd. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Here’s what to watch.
Missouri
Trump endorsed “ERIC” in Missouri’s high-profile and combative GOP Senate nomination race on Monday, on the eve of the state’s primary.
After teasing hours earlier that he would make an endorsement in the race, Trump declined to choose between two of the three front-runners in the primary: Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.
Instead, Trump threw his support behind both.
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Schmitt, who has won two statewide elections in Missouri, for treasurer and later for attorney general, has been in the headlines for the past year and a half, filing numerous lawsuits against President Biden’s administration. He has topped the latest polls in the race.
Greitens, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who left office in 2018 amid multiple controversies, was once the clear favorite in the primary race, but for months he has been fighting allegations from his ex-wife that he abuse her and her child. Greitens denies the claims.
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There is a long list of Republicans who fear Greitens’ political background could jeopardize what should be a relatively safe GOP seat in November. An anti-Greitens super PAC has spent more than $6 million this summer to run ads targeting the former governor.
The two Erics, along with Rep. Vicky Hartzler, who represents Missouri’s 4th congressional district in the predominantly rural west-central part of the state, head a field of more than 20 Missouri Republicans vying for the party’s nomination in the Senate, in the race to retire successfully. Republican Senator Roy Blunt.
Others in the Republican race include Rep. Billy Long in the state’s 7th congressional district in southwest Missouri, and Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis who, along with his wife, grabbed national headlines during the summer of 2020 for keeping guns out. home to keep Black Lives Matter protesters away.
The winner of Tuesday’s Republican primary will likely face off in November against Trudy Busch Valentine, a philanthropist and heiress to a brewing family, or Lucas Kunce, a former U.S. Marine who is running an aggressive style campaign. populist who won the endorsement of progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday. Both candidates are the poll favorites in a crowded field of 11 Democratic candidates.
Missouri was once a competitive state, but has trended Republican in recent decades. The winner of the Republican Senate primary will be considered the favorite in the November general election.
Arizona
Trump and Pence are at odds in the GOP gubernatorial primary in the race to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.
The former president supports former TV news anchor Kari Lake, who is a staunch defender of Trump’s repeated and unproven claims that his 2020 election loss to President Biden was due to massive fraud by voters
Former President Trump hugs Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake at a rally in support of Arizona Republican candidates on July 22, 2022 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Pence, along with Ducey, endorsed real estate developer and Arizona Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson. Trump and Pence were both in Arizona on the same day a week and a half ago, headlining competing campaign events.
Lake and Taylor Robson are the two front-runners in the Republican primary, with the winner likely to face off in November with Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is the leading contender for the state’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination red he once had. become the main battleground of the general election between the two major parties.
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Trump, at his rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona, about 90 miles north of Phoenix, also showed his support for venture capitalist Blake Masters in the state’s GOP Senate primary. Masters’ bid has also been backed and heavily backed by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, its former boss. The other top contenders in the race include businessman Jim Lamon, who has pumped millions of his own money behind his bid; Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich; and retired US Air Force Maj. Gen. Mick McGuire, who until last year served as adjutant general of the Arizona National Guard.
The winner of the primary will face off in the general election with Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who the GOP considers one of the most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbents up for re-election this year.
Michigan
Trump headlined a primary-eve telethon for conservative commentator and former online news anchor Tudor Dixon, the Michigan gubernatorial candidate he endorsed Friday after new polls indicated his growing lead in the nomination contest republicans
Tudor Dixon, Republican candidate for governor of Michigan, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, US, on Friday, February 25, 2022. (Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg)
Other top contenders in the race to take on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November include businessman Kevin Rinke, former owner of Rinke Automotive Group, one of the nation’s oldest auto dealership groups; chiropractor Garrett Soldano, who helped lead a vote to repeal the law Whitmer used to issue COVID-19 restrictions; real estate agent Ryan Kelley, who was charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol; and retired pastor Ralph Rebandt.
The GOP primary field narrowed in early June after several candidates, including former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, were kicked off the ballot over alleged fraudulent signatures. The narrowing of the field benefited Dixon, as well as the strong support of Michigan’s wealthy DeVos family, which includes Trump’s former education secretary, Betsy DeVos.
The Democratic Governors Association, as it did in the GOP gubernatorial primaries earlier this year in Maryland, Illinois and Pennsylvania, is wading in.
Put Michigan First, a Democratic group affiliated with the DGA and supporting Whitmer, spent big money to run ads targeting her on police funding and claiming her plans would make the state “less safe” with “less cops on the street.” “
The DGA isn’t the only pro-Democrat group jumping into a Republican primary in Michigan.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the re-election arm of House Democrats, spent six figures trying to undermine Republican Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Trump , pushing John. Gibbs, the Trump-backed candidate challenging Meijer.
Meijer, an Iraq War veteran who was elected to Congress in 2020, has been targeted by Trump for his impeachment vote. The former president endorsed Gibbs, a former software developer who served in the Trump administration as acting assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Gibbs also stands by Trump’s repeated unproven claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” due to “massive voter fraud.”
File photo of Republican Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan, speaking at a campaign rally on Oct. 14, 2020, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File))
Meijer represents Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District, in the western part of the state’s Lower Peninsula, which the DCCC sees as a competitive seat in November’s midterm elections. The latest Fox News power rankings have the district as Lean Republican. House Democrats hope to keep their razor-thin majority in the chamber in the midterms, and see Gibbs as a weaker general election candidate than Meijer.
Washington State
Meijer isn’t the only House Republican on Tuesday’s ballot to vote to impeach Trump.
Reps. Dan Newhouse and Jamie Herrera Beutler of Washington state face multiple primary challenges, including candidates backed by Trump.
Last year, the former president endorsed Army Special Forces veteran Joe Kent when he targeted Buetler in Washington’s third congressional district in the state’s southwest corner. He backed former police chief Loren Culp to take Newhouse in the 4th congressional district, which covers much of the central part of the state.
Washington holds what is known as a jungle primary, in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election.
Six of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the deadly attack on the Capitol by the far right and…