RENO, Nev. (AP) — Retired Army Capt. Sam Brown hopes a late endorsement from former President Donald Trump will help carry him to victory in Nevada's GOP U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday and give him the momentum he needs in the general election to help Republicans flip a seat in the closely divided chamber.
The winner will square off against incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in a fierce swing-state race.
Rosen, a first-term moderate defending her seat in a state that also could figure heavily in the outcome of the presidential race, is one of Republicans’ top targets in 2024. Democrats are defending far more Senate seats than Republicans this year, including open swing-state seats in Michigan and Arizona and seats held by incumbent Democrats in the competitive states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Republicans also hope to win seats held by Democrats in red-leaning Montana, Ohio and West Virginia.
Brown, a Purple Heart recipient who was wounded while serving in Afghanistan, has long been considered the GOP front-runner in a crowded primary field. He announced his Senate run last summer, less than a year after he lost his bid to challenge Nevada’s other Democratic senator in the western battleground state.
He was heavily recruited by Republicans in Washington, D.C., and almost immediately became the National Republican Senatorial Committee's favored candidate.
National Republicans have been deliberate in their attempt to avoid a repeat of their lackluster showing in the 2022 midterms, when Democrats exceeded expectations and held on to their tenuous Senate majority.
Before he can take on Rosen, who faces token Democratic primary opposition from two challengers, Brown must hold off a crowded field of primary opponents who have taken him to task for skipping debates and cast him as the hand-picked establishment candidate. The criticisms echo campaign themes offered up by Brown two years ago when he was seen as the insurgent candidate against former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt. Laxalt won the GOP primary but lost to Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.
This year's field of a dozen GOP candidates includes Trump's former ambassador to Iceland, dermatologist Jeff Gunter, who has portrayed himself as “110% pro-Trump.”
Also in the race is Jim Marchant, who ran for secretary of state in 2022 on a platform of election denialism spurred by Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential race was stolen. Marchant raised his national profile in 2022 as the organizer of a coalition of 17 GOP candidates who falsely challenged the election result. All of Nevada’s elected officials since 2006, he has said, have been “installed by the deep state cabal.”
Brown, who was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan that scarred his face, made military service central to his message this campaign cycle, just as he did during his unsuccessful 2022 Senate campaign.
At campaign stops, he has often recounted the explosion and the dozens of surgeries that followed, touting the leadership skills he learned in the Army and the Christian faith that sustained him through his recovery.
Trump's endorsement Sunday — after nearly 100,000 Republicans had cast ballots during a two-week early-voting period — further boosted Brown, who far outpaced his opponents in fundraising. Trump repeatedly said he liked many of the candidates in the race and had teased the endorsement for weeks before choosing Brown.
In Nevada, voters braved blistering temperatures near or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Reno and Las Vegas as they cast ballots at school gymnasiums and other sites. In some spots, election workers set up fans to keep people cool.
Liz and Barry Barnes, 73 and 80, respectively, braved the 99-degree heat to cast their ballots at Reno High School on Tuesday in support of Rosen and other Democrats.
The longtime Democrats said that they liked Rosen’s opposition to the United States Postal Service's plan to move key operations from Reno, among other issues. But they also had their sights set on the presidential election in November, when Nevada could play a decisive role in choosing between Biden and Trump.
“We’re scared of him winning,” Liz said of Trump. “We don’t want the country to go backwards.”
Also walking into the Reno High gymnasium was Dan Goldowski, 79, a retired pharmacist and Navy veteran who said he typically votes for Republicans or Libertarians and cast his vote for Brown.
He liked that Trump endorsed Brown, and “everything I read about (Brown’s opponents) was negative,” he said.
He’ll also be voting for Trump in November.
“His private life doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “Everybody makes some mistakes, and he probably did, too.”
Meanwhile, Gunter still describes his race with Brown as “MAGA vs Mitch” even after Trump endorsed Brown, referring to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has feuded with Trump.
In a Monday post on X, Gunter suggested that Trump got a “big check” from “the swamp” for endorsing Brown.
Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita addressed Gunter directly in his response, saying: “You have a habit of making up crap. President Trump makes his own decisions and this is another example of him choosing wisely.”
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Associated Press writer Scott Sonner in Reno contributed to this story.
