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Republicans breathed a collective sigh of relief Tuesday night as primary contests for the U.S. Senate produced a trio of candidates they consider effective challengers to Democratic incumbents in states President Trump won in 2016. The races in West Virginia, Indiana and Ohio were the first in what will be a months-long string of crowded primaries for Republicans in key battleground states, lasting until Wisconsin and Arizona vote in August.
GOP voters in Indiana, meanwhile, chose wealthy businessman Mike Braun over two sitting congressmen to lead the party's charge against a vulnerable Democratic senator in the fall. President Donald Trump and his allies cheered the West Virginia result Tuesday night, which helped avert a potential political disaster for a GOP already bracing for major losses in the November midterm elections.
Keeping it in the family! Mike Pence's brother Greg wins GOP bid for the Vice President's old congressional seat in Indiana Ex-con and failed GOP Senate candidate Don Blankenship conceded Tuesday in West Virginia with Attorney General Patrick Morrisey taking the nomination The brother of Vice President Mike Pence capitalized on his famous name to win an Indiana congressional primary against an entrepreneur who mostly self-funded his campaign. Columbus businessman Greg Pence has never held a public office.
Tuesday night could have theoretically gone better for Mitch McConnell, but not by much. Voters selected Republican Senate nominees in three states that were won overwhelmingly by Donald Trump in 2016, and instead of picking wacky outsiders who could torpedo the party's chances in November, the rank-and-file opted for nominees who should be able to capably carry the torch for the next six months.
Rick Colyer holds a sticker after placing his vote at the Durham County Library North Regional in Durham, N.C., Tuesday, May 8, 2018. North Carolina voters are choosing their parties' nominees Tuesday in dozens of legislative and congressional primary races congested with contestants who were spurred by strong feelings about President Donald Trump or their state's redistricting struggles.
Businessman Mike Braun defeated two members of Congress on Tuesday in a bitter primary battle to capture the Republican Senate nomination in Indiana, setting up against incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly in one of November's top races. All three Republicans competed to show their allegiance to President Donald Trump in a state he won by double-digits in 2016.
Morrisey beats Blankenship, Jenkins in West Virginia's GOP primary Morrisey's win likely boosts the GOP's chances against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in November's general election. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: https://usat.ly/2It9F0x West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey speaks during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC on February 27, 2018.
Cheryl Dolan of Alum Creek, W.Va, discusses her vote in the West Virginia Republican primary Tuesday, May 8, 2018, outside a polling place in Alum Creek. She said she appreciates the work that state Sen. Richard Ojeda of Logan County did to advance a bill through the West Virginia Legislature last year to make medical marijuana legal.
It's unusual for a candidate to come out to his election night party during the early portion of vote-counting to gab with reporters about how badly he's doing. But Don Blankenship is unusual.
The Republican Party got some welcome news out of Tuesday's West Virginia Senate primary: the party's not as overtly xenophobic and racist as previously feared! While that might sound like faint praise for the primary winner, State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is projected to defeat Rep. Evan Jenkins, it speaks to the potential damage that a victory by coal baron Don Blankenship threatened to inflict on the credibility of the party in November and beyond.
Republican West Virginia Senate candidate Don Blankenship 's latest political ad has stirred controversy for its use of terms like " China people " and references to Sen. Mitch McConnell as "cocaine Mitch" and his "China family". Blankenship, who is vying the chance to challenge West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin in November, is already known across his state.
His name may not be on the ballot, but President Donald Trump is figuring prominently in a number of primary races on Tuesday, as voters go to the polls to pick candidates for Congress in Ohio, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Indiana, kicking off primaries for the U.S. House and Senate in 30 states over the next six weeks. For Republicans, the outcome of primaries in three states of the states voting today could be an important sign as to their party's chances to keep control of the U.S. Senate in the 2018 mid-term elections, as Republicans target seats held by Democrats in three states won by the President - Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia, Sen. Joe Donnelly in Indiana and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
In this Jan. 18, 2018, file photo, former Massey CEO and West Virginia Republican Senatorial candidate, Don Blankenship, speaks during a town hall to kick off his campaign in Logan, W.Va. Voters in the heart of Trump country are ready to decide the fate of Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship, a brash businessman with a checkered past who's testing the appeal of President Donald Trump's outsider playbook in one of the nation's premiere midterm contests.
President Trump will disclose his plans for the future of the Iran nuclear deal Tuesday, as his hard-line advisers urge him to kill the deal and allies around the world push him to stay in. Under the agreement signed in 2015, the United States and others withdrew economic sanctions on Iran in return for it agreeing to give up the means to make nuclear weapons.
The anti-establishment fervor unleashed by Trump's spectacular 2016 election win has proven hard to control. West Virginia Republican voters will decide Tuesday if they want an ex-con coal baron as their US senator, even though President Donald Trump himself has warned the candidate is too radical to prevail in November's mid-term elections.
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said he will donate to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in the event that controversial coal baron Don Blankenship wins the GOP primary in West Virginia on Tuesday. "I hope that [Blankenship] doesn't get through the primary," Flake told reporters on Monday.
Interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based on past events Is there such a thing in today's Republican Party as too anti-establishment? Is already being a member of Congress enough to sink your candidacy for Congress? And could a wealth of opportunity for Republicans to unseat Senate Democrats this November actually end up backfiring? Those are the key questions facing the Republicans in divisive congressional and gubernatorial primaries Tuesday in West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina. Democrats have their own intraparty drama that could portend what happens in November, which we'll get to.
Gina Haspel, nominee to be director of the CIA, waves as she arrives at a meeting with U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin May 7, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. As the CIA wheeled a single cardboard box of classified material related to the highly secretive and reportedly torture-filled record of Gina Haspel-President Donald Trump's pick to head the agency-into the basement of the Capitol building on Monday, Sen. Joe Manchin emerged from his meeting with Haspel gushing about their " great " conversation and suggested he's " open " to voting for her confirmation.
One candidate is on supervised release from prison and has drawn explicit opposition from President Trump. Two came under fire over decades-old alcohol-related incidents.
In this Jan. 18, 2018, file photo, former Massey CEO and West Virginia Republican Senatorial candidate, Don Blankenship, speaks during a town hall to kick off his campaign in Logan, W.Va.