Bruising primary fights worry GOP leaders

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — In many parts of the country, Republican candidates are trying to put distance between themselves and President Donald Trump. In the Indiana Senate primary, the bruising fight is over which candidate is the more authentically Trumpian.

As the May 8 primary election approaches, the race here has taken a nasty turn, with candidates attacking one another as insufficiently aligned with the president, or way too late to Team Trump. Some Republicans worry that the tenor has the potential to bloody the winner so badly that he will be weakened in the general election contest against Sen. Joe Donnelly, one of this election year’s most vulnerable Democrats.

“Of course it helps Donnelly,” said Robert T. Grand, a lawyer and powerful figure in state politics for decades. “Any division in the Republican Party helps Donnelly.”

The Indiana primary is among several, including those in West Virginia and Wisconsin, where Republicans are locked in nominating battles in states Trump won in 2016 and where the party has hoped to add to its slender two-seat majority. In Wisconsin, a Marine Corps veteran and political newcomer, Kevin Nicholson, is taking on a state senator, Leah Vukmir, for the right to challenge the incumbent senator, Tammy Baldwin. Both have deep-pocketed donors ready to bankroll an extended primary fight.

In West Virginia, a half-dozen Republicans want to challenge Sen. Joe Manchin III, but three have emerged as the most formidable in a drawn-out battle, state