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    Nevada Residents Will Vote on Abortion Rights in November

    A measure seeking to protect abortion access in the State Constitution will appear on the ballot. It is one of nearly a dozen such initiatives that could shape other races this election. Nevada residents will vote on whether to protect the right to abortion in the state this November, as abortion rights groups try to continue their winning streak with measures that put the issue directly before voters. The Nevada secretary of state’s office certified on Friday the ballot initiative to amend the State Constitution to include an explicit right to abortion after verifying the signatures required. The group behind the measure, Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, submitted 200,000 signatures in May, nearly 100,000 more than needed. The secretary of state’s office told the group that it had verified just under 128,000 signatures.Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade and stripped the constitutional right to abortion, 18 Republican-controlled states have banned the procedure in almost all circumstances or prohibited it after six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. At least a dozen states, most of them led by Democrats, have passed new protections to abortion since the decision.The ruling has sparked a movement among abortion rights supporters to enshrine the right to the procedure in state constitutions through ballot measures. They have been successful in putting them on the ballot in at least five other states this year: Florida, Colorado, New York, Maryland and South Dakota. Similar initiatives are also underway in states like Arizona, Arkansas and Nebraska — which all face deadlines to submit signatures this week — and come November, voters in as many as 11 states could get a chance to weigh in.In Nevada, abortion is legal through 24 weeks of pregnancy. But organizers of the ballot initiative are seeking to amend the State Constitution to protect abortion up to the point of fetal viability — also around 24 weeks — because it is harder to change the Constitution than repeal state law.“We can’t take anything for granted,” said Lindsey Harmon, president of Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom. “We know Nevada has always been overwhelmingly pro-choice, and there’s no reason it should not be in the Constitution.”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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    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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    Opposition to Muslim Judicial Nominee Leaves Biden With a Tough Choice

    Adeel Mangi would be the first Muslim American to be a federal appeals court judge, but has faced vitriolic attacks from the G.O.P. The president could run out of time to fill the seat.The nomination of the first Muslim American to a federal appeals court judgeship is in deep trouble in the Senate, leaving President Biden with a painful choice between withdrawing the name of Adeel Mangi or trying to overcome the opposition at the risk of losing the chance to fill the crucial post before the November elections.Three Democrats have said they intend to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Mangi to the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in response to objections from local law enforcement groups. He has also faced what his backers label an unfounded bigoted assault from Republicans who have accused him of antisemitism and sympathy with terrorists.If Republicans remain united against him, as expected, and the Democrats cannot be persuaded to change their position, Mr. Mangi would lack the votes to be confirmed.The showdown is a new obstacle for the Biden administration and Senate Democrats as they try to fill as many federal court openings as they can before November. It has also angered Democrats who believe Mr. Mangi, a litigator from New Jersey and partner in a New York law firm, has been subjected to a baseless and ugly assault by Republicans because of his religion.“This has been the most brutal attack I have ever seen on anyone — and that is saying something,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He dismissed any notion of antisemitism on the part of Mr. Mangi, saying, “There is no basis whatsoever for even suggesting he has that point of view.”The seat that Mr. Mangi was nominated for is notable since the court, which hears matters from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands, is currently divided 7-6 in favor of judges nominated by Republican presidents. Mr. Biden could even the court’s makeup by filling the vacancy.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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    With Manchin Out, Democrats’ Path to Holding the Senate Is Narrow

    While the party will be on defense in every competitive race, Republicans face some messy primaries and a recent history of nominating extreme candidates who have lost key contests.Senator Joe Manchin III said he decided to forgo re-election because he’d accomplished all his goals. But for the Democrats he’s leaving behind in Washington, the work to hold the party’s already slim Senate majority is just beginning.While there are no guarantees in politics, West Virginia is now a virtual lock to flip Republican. The state has become so conservative that only Wyoming delivered a wider Republican margin in the 2020 presidential race. In the immediate aftermath of Mr. Manchin’s announcement, several well-placed Democratic operatives said they couldn’t name a single West Virginian who could take his place on the ballot and be even remotely competitive, particularly if Gov. Jim Justice wins the Republican nomination.“This is a huge impact,” said Ward Baker, a former executive director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group that oversees Senate races. “Manchin not running will save Republicans a ton of money — and it takes a seat off the board early.”The path to holding power was always going to be rocky for the Democrats’ current 51-seat majority, with or without Mr. Manchin.Two incumbents are running for re-election in red states, Montana and Ohio. A third senator, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who was elected as a Democrat but has since switched her party affiliation to independent, has yet to declare her plans — leaving open the prospect of an unusually competitive three-way race. And the party must also defend four Senate seats in four of the most contested presidential battlegrounds: Wisconsin, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan.But Republicans face some potentially divisive primaries and a recent history of nominating extreme candidates who have lost key contests.With West Virginia off the Senate chessboard next year, Democrats must win every race they are defending — and depend on President Biden to win the White House — in order to maintain a majority. In a 50-50 Senate, the vice president casts the tiebreaking vote. But that’s a risky bet considering a plurality of Americans haven’t approved of President Biden since August 2021, according to Gallup polls.The bad news for Senate Democrats is that they are on defense in each of the seven seats that both parties view as most competitive this year. The good news is that in five of those seven, the party has incumbents running for re-election, which has historically been a huge advantage.At least 83 percent of Senate incumbents have won re-election in 18 of the past 21 election cycles, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. Last year, 100 percent of Senate incumbents were re-elected. “Given Democratic success in 2020 and 2022, it’d be malpractice to write Democrats off at this stage,” said Justin Goodman, a former top aide to Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader. “Candidates matter,” he said, as well as the ongoing contrast that Democrats have sought to strike against the “extreme MAGA agenda.”The Democratic incumbents in Montana and Ohio — the top two targets for Republicans with West Virginia off the map — are seeking re-election in states former President Donald J. Trump easily won twice. Both Senator Jon Tester of Montana and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio have exceeded expectations before, but never with such an unpopular presidential candidate at the top of the ticket. And unlike most incumbents, whose victories tend to become easier over time, Mr. Tester has always had close races. Mr. Brown’s margins have narrowed.But close victories count just as much as easy ones, and Democrats maintain that the personal brands of both Mr. Brown and Mr. Tester matter more in their states than national political winds.Republicans, who are also facing headwinds because of the unpopularity of Mr. Trump and the party’s role in rolling back abortion rights, are attempting to follow suit. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is putting a heavy emphasis on candidate recruitment this cycle to find contenders who can appeal to both conservatives and moderates in the party.The strategy has already paid off in West Virginia.One of the first calls this year from Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican overseeing his party’s Senate races, was to Mr. Justice in West Virginia, believing that the popular governor’s presence in the race would help persuade Mr. Manchin to retire.The second part of Mr. Daines’s strategy in West Virginia was persistently lobbying to secure a Trump endorsement for Mr. Justice, with the aim of not just forcing out Mr. Manchin but also the hope that it would convince him to run for president as an independent. Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Justice last month.Mr. Manchin, meanwhile, furthered speculation of a potential presidential bid by saying Thursday he planned to gauge “interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.”In 2018, Democrats and Republicans combined spent about $53 million on the West Virginia Senate race. With no competitive race there in 2024, both parties will have tens of millions of dollars to spend on a second tier of battleground races. Last year, candidates, parties and outside groups spent more than $1.3 billion on 36 Senate races, including $737 million in just five states — Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — that are also on the ballot again next year.“I think Wisconsin and Michigan are about to get a bunch of Republican money they weren’t going to get otherwise,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist who has worked on Senate races.The most interesting of the second-tier races may be in Arizona, where the state may have a competitive three-way race — a rarity in American politics. The wild-card is Ms. Sinema.If she runs for a second term, she will most likely face Representative Ruben Gallego, a well-liked progressive Democrat who has already spent $6.2 million on the race this year, and Kari Lake, the firebrand conservative Republican and one of her party’s best-known election deniers who is favored in her party’s primary.A competitive three-way general election would add a riveting dynamic to what could be the most expensive Senate race in the country next year. The state’s Senate contest last year, which pitted Senator Mark Kelly against Blake Masters, the Republican nominee, cost more than $225 million.There is no top-flight Republican challenging Senator Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, but the party has been pushing for Eric Hovde, a businessman who ran for Senate in 2012. In Pennsylvania, Republicans have cleared a path for David McCormick with the aim of avoiding a bruising primary and strengthening their bid against Senator Bob Casey, who is seeking a fourth six-year term.Republicans haven’t been as lucky in Michigan or Nevada.In Michigan — the only competitive Senate race without an incumbent — Democrats so far have mostly aligned behind Representative Elissa Slotkin, a former C.I.A. analyst who represents a divided district. Mr. Daines recruited former Representative Mike Rogers, who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But James Craig, a former Detroit police chief, and former Representative Peter Meijer, who lost his seat after voting to impeach Mr. Trump, have also entered the Republican race.The Republican establishment pick in Nevada is Sam Brown, a retired Army captain who lost a Senate primary last year. But he’s facing a primary against Jim Marchant, a Trump loyalist and election denier who lost a race for secretary of state last year. The winner would take on Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat who is seeking her second term.With West Virginia scotched, the Democratic Senate map is undeniably constricting. But the party will look to go on the offensive in Florida and Texas. Both states have been reliable Republican strongholds in recent years, but Democrats realistically have no better options to flip a Republican seat this year.In Florida, Senator Rick Scott, the state’s former governor, is seeking a second term. He’s never won an election by more than 1.2 percentage points, and he’s also never run in a presidential election year — when Democrats typically fare better in Florida.But the state lurched to the right last year when Republicans won five statewide races on the ballot by an average of 18.9 percentage points. The leading Democratic challenger in the Florida Senate race this year is former Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who was unseated from her Miami-based seat after one term.In Texas, Senator Ted Cruz has been a constant target for Democrats — and survived each time. This year, his top challenger appears to be Representative Colin Allred, a Dallas-area Democrat who defeated an incumbent Republican in 2018.“Cruz’s vulnerability means there’s an opportunity there, and Cruz can be beat no matter the presidential result,” said J.B. Poersch, president of the Senate Majority PAC, which has spent more than $140 million in the past four years supporting Democratic Senate candidates.The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has been testing campaign messages in both states, and the party has dedicated communications and research staff in each location.But to win in Florida and Texas, Democrats will need stars to align in a way they did not in West Virginia.“Quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Mr. Baker, the former N.R.S.C. director, said of Democratic hopes to take Florida or Texas. “They just lost a Senate seat. No way to spin that.” More

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    Jim Marchant, a Nevada Election Denier, Announces Senate Run

    Mr. Marchant, who lost his bid for Nevada’s secretary of state last year, will now attempt to unseat Senator Jacky Rosen, the Democratic incumbent.Jim Marchant, a vocal election denier and Trump ally who lost his bid for Nevada’s secretary of state in last year’s midterm elections, declared his candidacy on Tuesday for the Senate in a swing state contest that could decide control of the chamber in 2024.Mr. Marchant, a Republican, is seeking to challenge Senator Jacky Rosen, a moderate Democrat who is in her first term. No other high-profile Republicans have entered the contest so far.During last year’s midterm elections, Mr. Marchant helped organize a national “America First” slate of secretary of state candidates, a group of right-wing election deniers whose campaigns centered on re-litigating baseless voter fraud claims. All but one of the candidates were rejected by voters.The once-obscure election oversight post has taken on heightened significance since the 2020 election. In Mr. Marchant’s race, he did not appear to concede.Mr. Marchant, 66, a former one-term assemblyman, was also part of Nevada’s alternate slate of pro-Trump electors who sought to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the state in 2020. He refused to accept the results that same year in his race for Congress, unsuccessfully challenging them in court.“There’s nothing more precious than our freedom and personal liberty,” Mr. Marchant said on Tuesday, speaking at a Las Vegas church known for having tested Nevada’s pandemic stay-at-home orders in court in 2020. “And I’m running for United States Senate to protect Nevadans from the overbearing government, from Silicon Valley, from big media, from labor unions, from the radical gender change advocates, where Jacky Rosen has failed you.”In a statement on Twitter on Tuesday, Ms. Rosen cast Mr. Marchant as an extremist.“Nevadans deserve a Senator who will fight for them, not a MAGA election denier who opposes abortion rights even in cases of rape and incest,” she wrote. “While far-right politicians like Jim Marchant spread baseless conspiracy theories, I’ve always focused on solving problems for Nevadans.”Mr. Marchant was joined on Tuesday by the political strategist Dick Morris, who Mr. Marchant said would be working as a general consultant on his campaign. Mr. Morris, who preceded him onstage, also repeated false claims about election fraud. More