An Army veteran who got a last-minute Donald Trump endorsement won the Nevada Senate Republican primary late Tuesday after another GOP Senate hopeful claimed the endorsement had been bought for cash.
Former Army Capt. Sam Brown had been backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee throughout the race, and he was widely seen as a shoo-in even before he clinched 59.6 percent of the vote on Tuesday night. But the race was not without turbulence within the GOP, as Brown’s opponent, Trump’s former ambassador to Iceland, Jeffrey Gunter, alleged on social media that a “big check” had been behind the former president’s belated endorsement of Brown.
Trump announced his endorsement on Sunday night after his rally in Las Vegas, just two days before the primary, praising Brown as a “fearless American patriot.” Gunter claimed, without providing evidence, that the “swamp” had swayed Trump with a check, an allegation the Trump campaign has denied.
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Gunter lost to Brown by more than 40 points.
“Thank you all for your resounding support tonight. Now we’re on to November—to bring accountability to DC, and finally retire Joe Biden and Jacky Rosen,” Brown said in a statement on X after his win.
Brown will now face off against Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen, who has already released her first ad hitting the former Army captain on abortion. The 30-second ad tells the story of a woman who says she was forced to leave Texas when she needed an abortion due to “devastating” complications in her pregnancy.
“Before Sam Brown ran for office in Nevada, he ran in Texas, where he pushed one of the most extreme abortion bans,” a narrator says in the ad released Monday. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has dubbed Brown a “MAGA extremist.”
