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    Why Senate Democrats Are Outperforming Biden in Key States

    Democratic candidates have leads in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan and Arizona — but strategists aligned with both parties caution that the battle for Senate control is just starting.It was a Pride Weekend in Wisconsin, a natural time for the state’s pathbreaking, openly gay senator to rally her Democratic base, but on Sunday, Tammy Baldwin was far away from the parades and gatherings in Madison and Milwaukee — at a dairy farm in Republican Richland County.“I’ll show up in deep-red counties. and they’ll be like, ‘I can’t remember the last time we’ve seen a sitting U.S. senator here, especially not a Democrat,’” said Ms. Baldwin, an hour into her unassuming work of handing out plastic silverware at an annual dairy breakfast, and five months before Wisconsin voters will decide whether to give her a third term. “I think that begins to break through.”Wisconsin is one of seven states that will determine the presidency this November, but it will also help determine which party controls the Senate. President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump are running neck-and-neck in the state, which Mr. Trump narrowly won in 2016 and Mr. Biden took back in 2020.Ms. Baldwin, by contrast, is running well ahead of the president and her presumed Republican opponent, the wealthy banker Eric Hovde. Polls released early last month by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College found Ms. Baldwin holding a lead of 49 percent to 40 percent over Mr. Hovde. In late May, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report put the spread even wider, 12 percentage points.That down-ballot Democratic strength is not isolated to Wisconsin. Senate Democratic candidates also hold leads in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. A Marist Poll released Tuesday said Mr. Trump led Mr. Biden in Ohio by seven percentage points, but Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, leads his challenger, Bernie Moreno, by five percentage points, a 12-point swing.The Huff-Nel-Sons Farm in Richmond Center, Wis., hosted the annual dairy breakfast on Sunday.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Sam Brown Wins Nevada G.O.P. Senate Primary and Will Face Jacky Rosen in November

    Sam Brown, an Army veteran who was the heavy favorite in the Nevada Republican primary race for Senate even before former President Donald J. Trump’s last-minute endorsement, won the nomination on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.He will face Senator Jacky Rosen, the state’s Democratic incumbent, in one of the most closely watched Senate contests of the year.With 57 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Brown had 57 percent, lapping the crowded primary field. His closest rival, Jeff Gunter, a former U.S. ambassador to Iceland, had about 17 percent. Jim Marchant, a former state assemblyman, was at roughly 7 percent, and Tony Grady, an Air Force veteran, had 5 percent.The victory was redemption of sorts for Mr. Brown, who ran for Senate in 2022 after moving to Reno, Nev., from Dallas in 2018, but lost in the Republican primary to Adam Laxalt, the state’s former attorney general. This time, he was the pick of the Republican establishment from the start, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the Senate, backed him early and worked to clear the field of competitors.They did not quite manage that. Roughly a dozen Republican challengers vied for the right to face Ms. Rosen, a low-profile Democrat running for re-election in a battleground state where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.But most gained little traction, and as Mr. Brown crisscrossed the country raising money and rallying support from prominent Republicans, the other candidates failed to come close to his fund-raising totals. He also earned the endorsement of the state’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Endorses Sam Brown in Nevada’s Key Senate Race

    Mr. Brown, a former Army captain, is the leading candidate in a crowded field of Republicans vying to take on Senator Jacky Rosen, a vulnerable Democratic incumbent in a presidential battleground.Former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday said he was endorsing Sam Brown, the Army veteran who is leading the crowded Republican primary field in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race.“Sam Brown is a fearless American patriot,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, adding that Mr. Brown would “fight tirelessly” to protect the border and improve the economy.The endorsement, though belated — the primary is on June 11 and early voting has already ended — solidifies Mr. Brown’s standing as the front-runner and heavy favorite to advance to November’s general election against Senator Jacky Rosen, the Democratic incumbent. He has raised more money than his primary rivals, received the endorsement of the state’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, and led by double-digits in every recent poll of the race, though most were commissioned by his own campaign.Mr. Trump’s opinion was the sole remaining question mark. Though he is campaigning as a strong supporter of the former president, Mr. Brown was late to formally back Mr. Trump’s bid for a second term, and his primary rivals sought to capitalize from the right. Jeff Gunter, a wealthy dermatologist and Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Iceland, staked out a position as a MAGA candidate, slamming Mr. Brown in television advertisements as he angled for a possible endorsement from Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump has shared images promoting Mr. Brown’s dominance in Nevada polls on Truth Social, and he praised both Mr. Brown and Jim Marchant, a former state assemblyman and prominent election denier who is also running for Senate, in an interview with a local television station in late May.In a post on X, Mr. Brown said he was “honored” to have Mr. Trump’s endorsement. “I look forward to working with you to bring a better future to every Nevadan and American when we both win in November,” Mr. Brown said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Progressives Urge Biden to Push Harder on ‘Greedflation’

    It’s a moniker about corporate price increases that has bolstered some Democratic senators, and now the president is being encouraged to lean in on the issue for his economic messaging.As high prices at grocery stores, gas pumps and pharmacies have soured many voters on his first term, President Biden has developed a populist riposte: Blame big corporations for inflation, not me.But despite facing a tough re-election battle where economic issues will be central, Mr. Biden has not leaned into that message as frequently or naturally as some other Democrats, including senators running in competitive seats across the southwest and the industrial Midwest. The Biden campaign has not focused its television or online advertisements on messages berating companies for high prices, unlike Senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who have made the issue a centerpiece of their campaigns — and who are outrunning Mr. Biden in polls.Now, some progressives are urging Mr. Biden to follow those senators’ lead and make “greedflation,” as they call it, a driving theme of his re-election bid. They say that taking the fight to big business could bolster the broader Main Street vs. Wall Street argument he is pursuing against former President Donald J. Trump, particularly with the working-class voters of color Mr. Biden needs to motivate. And they believe polls show voters are primed to hear the president condemn big corporations in more forceful terms.“It’s a winning message for Democrats,” said April Verrett, the president of the Service Employees International Union, which is knocking on doors in battleground states as part of a $200 million voter-turnout operation. “And clearly Bob Casey, who’s doing better in the polls than the president, is proving that it’s the winning message.”Inflation soared under Mr. Biden in 2021 and 2022, as the economy emerged from pandemic recession. Its causes were complex, including snarled global supply chains, stimulative policies by the Federal Reserve and, to a degree, federal fiscal policies including Covid relief bills signed by Mr. Trump and the $1.9 trillion emergency spending measure Mr. Biden signed soon after taking office to help people and businesses hurt by the downturn.What Republicans call “Bidenflation” has become one of the president’s biggest political liabilities in his rematch with Mr. Trump. In response, Mr. Biden has sought to simultaneously cheer progress in stabilizing or bringing down prices — growth has slowed sharply from a year ago — while acknowledging the pain voters still feel in their pocketbooks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    New Jersey Primary Election Results 2024

    Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press.Produced by Michael Andre, Camille Baker, Neil Berg, Michael Beswetherick, Matthew Bloch, Irineo Cabreros, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Leo Dominguez, Andrew Fischer, Martín González Gómez, Will Houp, Junghye Kim, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Jasmine C. Lee, Alex Lemonides, Ilana Marcus, Alicia Parlapiano, Elena Shao, Charlie Smart, Jonah Smith, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang. Additional reporting by Felice Belman, Kellen Browning and Patrick Hays; production by Amanda Cordero and Jessica White.
    Editing by Wilson Andrews, Lindsey Rogers Cook, William P. Davis, Amy Hughes, Ben Koski and Allison McCartney. Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press. More

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    Andy Kim Wins New Jersey Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate

    The victory makes Mr. Kim a favorite to replace Mr. Menendez’s father, Senator Robert Menendez, who is on trial, charged with corruption — a detail that became central to his son’s re-election race.Representative Andy Kim, a lawmaker who has turned New Jersey politics on its head since entering the race to unseat Senator Robert Menendez, won the Democratic nomination for Senate on Tuesday after a campaign marked by a watershed ballot-access ruling.The victory makes Mr. Kim, 41, a favorite to become New Jersey’s next senator. He would be the first Korean American to be elected to the U.S. Senate.“I’m humbled by the results,” Mr. Kim said at Terhune Orchards in Princeton, where his supporters had gathered to celebrate. “This has been a very challenging and difficult race, a very dramatic one at that, and one that frankly has changed New Jersey politics forever.”The results, announced by The Associated Press minutes after polls closed, capped a tumultuous campaign that began a day after Senator Menendez, a Democrat, was accused in September of being at the center of a sprawling international bribery scheme.The senator’s criminal case thrust his son, Representative Rob Menendez, 38, into a suddenly competitive race for re-election to a second term. But the younger Menendez managed to hold on, winning a Democratic primary over Ravi Bhalla, the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., by a decisive margin.“This is about showing that you’re resilient in the face of challenges,” an exuberant Mr. Menendez told supporters crowded into a beer hall in Jersey City, N.J.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Tim Sheehy Wins G.O.P. Nod to Challenge Tester for Senate in Montana

    Tim Sheehy, a businessman and former Navy SEAL, won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Montana on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, setting him up for a November showdown against Senator Jon Tester, the Democratic incumbent.With 27 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Sheehy had 75.5 percent, well ahead of his lesser-known opponents. Brad Johnson, Montana’s former secretary of state, had 18 percent of the vote, and Charles Walkingchild had 6.5 percent.The Republican primary was essentially a foregone conclusion since February, when Representative Matt Rosendale abruptly exited the race — less than a week after he entered it — citing former President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Sheehy. Mr. Rosendale, a right-wing hard-liner, had been viewed as the only serious challenger to Mr. Sheehy, for whom the Republican establishment had worked to clear the field. His victory is a boon for Republicans as they work to recapture control of the Senate, competing on a favorable map in which a number of vulnerable Democrats face tough re-election battles.“Tim Sheehy is a strong conservative, an American hero and a successful businessman who will bring an outsider’s perspective to a broken Washington,” said Senator Steve Daines, the Montana Republican who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the Senate. “The clearest path to a Republican Senate majority runs through Montana.”Mr. Sheehy will face a formidable opponent in Mr. Tester, a popular incumbent who has survived past challenges in his ruby-red state by leaning on his background as a third-generation Montana farmer and his reputation of bipartisanship. Recent polls have suggested a tight race, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Montana a “tossup.” Mr. Tester officially captured the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.Mr. Tester has a cash advantage; he raised $4.1 million between April 1 and May 15, according to recent financial filings, and his campaign has $11.7 million cash on hand. Mr. Sheehy’s campaign raised $2.1 million in the same period — including $600,000 the candidate lent himself — and had $2.2 million cash on hand.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Lara Trump, R.N.C. Leader, Denounces Larry Hogan for Accepting Trump Verdict

    Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee and former President Donald J. Trump’s daughter-in-law, on Sunday denounced Larry Hogan, the Republican Senate candidate in Maryland, for urging Americans to “respect the verdict” against Mr. Trump — criticizing a prized recruit who has given the party a chance of winning a seat that has reliably been held by Democrats.Late Thursday afternoon, after a Manhattan jury said that it had reached its verdict — but before it had been announced — Mr. Hogan, a former governor of Maryland, posted on social media: “Regardless of the result, I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process. At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders — regardless of party — must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”That statement was not shocking coming from Mr. Hogan, a moderate Republican who has long been critical of Mr. Trump. But it enraged some supporters of Mr. Trump, who claimed that the trial was rigged because of grievances including its venue in liberal New York City.Former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, now running for Senate, has been a frequent critic of Mr. Trump.Daniel Kucin Jr./Associated PressMr. Hogan “doesn’t deserve the respect of anyone in the Republican Party at this point, and quite frankly anybody in America, if that’s the way you feel,” Ms. Trump, who is married to Mr. Trump’s son Eric, said in an interview on CNN — the latest indication of how fealty to Mr. Trump has become a defining test within the Republican Party.She did not directly answer follow-up questions from the interviewer, Kasie Hunt, about whether the Republican Party would continue to support Mr. Hogan. A spokeswoman for Mr. Hogan did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More