Republicans’ efforts to maintain or expand the party’s Senate majority begin in earnest this week, when GOP primary voters will pick three of the nominees to face incumbent Democrats in states President Donald Trump won two years ago.

The contests on the ballot include the blockbuster race in West Virginia, where Republicans are newly concerned that Don Blankenship — the once-imprisoned former coal baron running a scorched-earth campaign against the GOP establishment — could win the nomination and threaten the party’s chances to topple Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), even in a state Trump carried by 42 percentage points in 2016.


Ten Republicans will challenge Democrats in Trump states this November. In addition to West Virginia, Republicans will also choose two other Senate nominees Tuesday in crucial races: Indiana and Ohio — states Trump carried decisively. And each of those three primary campaigns has turned more pitched and acrimonious in the run-up to the vote, an early sign of ugly midterm fights ahead in states that will help determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years.

Republicans on Tuesday will also hold closely watched congressional primaries in North Carolina and Ohio that will shed light on the party’s posture going into the midterms, while Democrats’ efforts to mount a comeback in the nation’s statehouses begins Tuesday with a critical primary for Ohio governor.

But it’s the West Virginia Senate contest that has roiled the national landscape — in large part because of establishment Republicans’ efforts to derail Blankenship’s campaign, and Blankenship’s inflammatory and at times racially charged rhetoric in response.

Many in the party are convinced that a Blankenship win would destroy the party’s prospects of defeating Manchin in November. They draw parallels to last year’s special election in Alabama, where former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, who was accused during the campaign of decades-old sexual misconduct involving underage women, won the GOP nomination before losing to now-Sen. Doug Jones, the state's first Democratic senator in 25 years.

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Republicans still expect to have an easier time in Senate races in the midterms. Democrats must defend all 10 tough seats and pick up two more to take control of the Senate. But with a surge of activism on the left, Republicans fear a few surprise losses such as Moore's could cost them their expected advantage.

For a while, many senior Republicans in Washington believed that Blankenship — who spent a year in prison following the 2010 explosion at his Upper Big Branch Mine that killed 29 workers — had been neutralized and that two mainstream candidates, GOP Rep. Evan Jenkins or state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, were most likely to prevail.

Public polling conducted in recent weeks showed Blankenship fading amid an avalanche of attacks from a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The group, Mountain Families PAC, has spent over $1.3 million on TV commercials attacking Blankenship.

But in the race’s final days, some Republicans are concerned that Blankenship has bounced back. The former coal baron has dug into his own pockets to fund a $2.5 million TV blitz, spending far more than his primary rivals. During the final six days of the race, Blankenship spent more than $640,000 on the air, outstripping Jenkins and Morrisey combined, according to media buying totals.

Also worrying senior Republicans is the fact that Jenkins and Morrisey spent the final stretch of the race savaging each other in debates and TV commercials, a dynamic that damaged both of them and could create an opening for Blankenship. Jenkins also found himself under assault from Duty and Country, a super PAC run by national Democrats who view the congressman as a threat in the general election and want to prevent him from winning the primary.

During the final days of the race, Blankenship waged a slash-and-burn campaign targeting McConnell. The attacks were at times harshly personal and even racial in nature, with the former coal baron going after the family of McConnell’s spouse, Taiwanese-born Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. While Blankenship has come under widespread criticism for his assault, some Republicans worry that he’ll succeed in tapping into conservative antagonism toward McConnell.

As the contest comes to a close, some Republicans are raising alarms. Last Thursday, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., sent out a tweet urging West Virginians to “reject Blankenship.”

And on Sunday afternoon, Morrisey ratcheted up the pressure, announcing that he would seek to inform Blankenship’s probation officer of Blankenship’s refusal to submit financial disclosure forms to the Senate required of all candidates.

Asked Sunday afternoon by a reporter at a press conference in Charleston why he waited until two days before the election to level these charges, Morrisey cited Blankenship’s late surge.

“To be honest, I thought that West Virginians would see through the candidacy of Don Blankenship even more,” the state attorney general said. “And it’s apparent over the last couple days — as he’s been moving up, getting very close in the polls — I think it’s in the public interest to be able to talk about this information.”

Meanwhile, in the Indiana GOP Senate primary, Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita are mounting desperate bids to derail self-funder Mike Braun. Braun, a businessman and former state representative, has donated or loaned $6.3 million to his campaign for the GOP nomination to face Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.).

The top attack line on Braun: His past voting history in Democratic primaries in the state. On Saturday, six former state GOP chairmen signed a letter in support of Messer — and knocking Braun.

“He’s on TV claiming to be a ‘lifelong Republican,’ but for 38 years he voted in the Democrat[ic] Primary — all while loyal Republican stalwarts were working hard to build the Dubois County Republican Party," former chairmen Tim Berry, Murray Clark, Gordon Durnil, Al Hubbard, Jim Kittle and Bruce Melchert wrote in the letter.

The performances of Messer and Rokita — along with Jenkins in West Virginia — could also serve as an indication of GOP primary voters’ opinions of House Republicans. Other sitting members of Congress are seeking new jobs in other states later in the election cycle.

By comparison, the Republican Senate primary in Ohio had been a sleepy affair since Rep. Jim Renacci abandoned his gubernatorial campaign and switched to the Senate race earlier this year. But the contest took a litigious turn last Friday when businessman Mike Gibbons — who has self-funded his campaign to the tune of $2.6 million — sued Renacci for defamation.

While Renacci has earned Trump’s endorsement and the backing of the state GOP, Gibbons has high-profile surrogates of his own. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) crossed the Ohio River to campaign for Gibbons last week.

In the Ohio gubernatorial race, state Attorney General Mike DeWine, the former senator, is expected to fend off Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor following an ugly GOP primary.

But the Democratic primary results in that race remain uncertain. Richard Cordray, a former state attorney general who is best known in Washington for leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until last year, entered the race as the favorite for his party’s nomination.

Cordray’s march to the nomination hit an obstacle, however, when former Rep. Dennis Kucinich jumped into the race just before the filing deadline. While some Democrats fear Kucinich is too liberal and too idiosyncratic — the former presidential candidate has ties to controversial regimes in Russia and Syria and claims to have seen a UFO in the 1980s at the home of actress Shirley MacLaine — to win in November, Kucinich has been endorsed by Our Revolution, the political action committee with ties to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Also on the ballot in Ohio: primaries in the state’s 12th Congressional District — for both a special election to be held in August, and the general election in November. Former Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio) resigned earlier this year, but the nine-term congressman is using his leftover campaign dollars to back state Sen. Troy Balderson in the race to replace him.

That has set up a proxy war between Tiberi, an establishment-friendly Republican who was a close ally of former House Speaker John Boehner, and conservative groups, who are supporting Melanie Leneghan, a trustee in Liberty Township, a suburb of Cincinnati. Leneghan is backed by leaders of the House Freedom Caucus, including co-founder Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Observers are also following the GOP primary to replace Renacci in the House. Anthony Gonzalez, a former Ohio State football star who was a first-round draft pick in the NFL, has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while state Rep. Christina Hagan is challenging Gonzalez on his right flank.

Two incumbent House members from North Carolina face spirited primary challenges on Tuesday. Rep. Robert Pittenger faces pastor Mark Harris, the man whom he defeated by only 134 votes two years ago. Meanwhile, Rep. Walter Jones, long a GOP iconoclast, again faces a more establishment-aligned primary challenger: Scott Dacey, a lobbyist and local elected official.

And in Indiana, the departures of Messer and Rokita open two strongly Republican House seats, with some familiar names on the ballot in Tuesday’s primaries. In Rokita’s district, Steve Braun, brother of Senate candidate Mike Braun, is one of the leading candidates. And the front-runner for Messer’s seat is Greg Pence, a first-time candidate and brother of Vice President Mike Pence.

