Trump-backed challengers excel in Indiana state Senate races; Ohio's big midterm matchups take shape

Democrat Chedrick Greene wins the special election for Michigan state Senate District 35, NBC News projects, preserving Democratic control of the chamber.

See the latest results here.

Trump exacted revenge on Indiana Republican legislators who foiled his redistricting push last year in the state, backing challengers who unseated five incumbents in today's primaries, NBC News projects.

One other GOP state senator who faced a Trump-endorsed opponent was locked in a tight race, while another survived.

Steve Kornacki breaks down primary races in Ohio, Indiana

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The double-digit defeats of the five incumbents, some of whom were veterans of the Indiana Legislature, underscore the influence Trump continues to wield over the Republican Party, even as his approval rating among Americans broadly sags amid rising gas prices and the Iran war.

Trump’s intervention in the typically quiet local primary races brought a flood of money and national attention to Indiana. Roughly $12 million was spent on advertising across the seven contests with Trump-endorsed challenges to sitting state senators, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, most of which came from Trump-allied outside groups opposing the incumbents.

Read the full story here.

Derek Merrin wins the Republican primary for Ohio's 9th Congressional District, NBC News projects. He'll take on Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a battleground race this fall.

See the latest results here.

Trump-backed Trevor De Vries wins the Republican primary for Indiana state Senate District 1, NBC News projects.

That's five wins for Trump-backed challengers against GOP state senators in Indiana, versus one loss.

See the latest results here.

Trump-backed Brian Schmutzler wins the Republican primary for Indiana state Senate District 11, NBC News projects.

That's four Trump-backed challengers who have beaten state senators who defied him on redistricting, while one more challenger has lost.

See the latest results here.

All eyes are on the Indiana state Senate Republican primaries, but there are some interesting numbers in the state's U.S. House primaries, too.

Republican Reps. Jim Baird and Victoria Spartz have won their races, NBC News projects, but they and fellow incumbent Jefferson Shreve all have less than 60% of the vote in their primaries right now, with more votes left to be counted.

Spartz and Baird are in similar shape, just shy of 60% with less than half the expected vote in.

But Shreve is up by just 6 points with more than half of the vote counted to an opponent who spent hardly any money on her campaign. NBC News has not projected the result in that race.

Eric Conroy wins the Republican primary for Ohio's 1st Congressional District, NBC News projects.

This district, currently held by Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman, is a top Republican target in November. Trump carried the district in 2024.

See the latest results here.

State Sen. Greg Goode won his primary tonight, unlike at least three of his colleagues who lost to Trump-endorsed challengers.

He’s also the only Republican state senator who hosted an event last year to ask Indiana voters what they thought ahead of a key vote on redistricting, the issue that brought on Trump’s ire and moneyed primary challengers.

Goode hosted a listening session in Terre Haute in November, spending hours hearing what voters said about the issue. The voters who attended, local media reported, urged him to vote no, which he went on to do in December.

That no vote earned him and six colleagues well-financed primary challengers this spring.

Two hard facts hover over this year’s midterm races in Ohio.

It has been 20 years since the state last elected a Democrat as governor. And it has been even longer since a Democrat not named Sherrod Brown has won a second election to any nonjudicial statewide office.

But party leaders are daring to be optimistic in 2026, encouraged by polls that show their candidate for governor, physician Amy Acton, running close with newly official Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy. They also scored a recruiting win when Brown launched a comeback Senate bid. Brown won the Democratic nomination today to face Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican appointed to succeed Vice President JD Vance. Early polls foreshadow a close race in that contest, too.

“It just feels like Ohio is back,” said state Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Clyde, referring to years in the wilderness during which, except when Brown was on the ballot, both national parties retreated from what was once a fiercely contested battleground.

Read the full story here.

Trump-backed Michelle Davis wins the Republican primary for Indiana state Senate District 41, NBC News projects.

She's the third Trump-backed challenger to defeat an incumbent in one of the primaries fueled by the state senators' "no" votes on redistricting. One of Trump's candidates has also lost.

See the latest results here.

Vance took repeated shots at Democrats here today in a midterm year effort to boost a vulnerable Republican congressman.

'This is not a normal election': Vance addresses Iowa voters in support of GOP candidate

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“This is not a normal election,” Vance told a crowd of several hundred on the warehouse floor of a company that makes grilles for truck guards.

“This is not a normal political environment,” he continued. “This is a contest between a party that wants to take all of your money and give it to illegal aliens and a contest between gentlemen like Zach Nunn who fight every single day for you.”

Vance’s event was billed as a White House message to American workers, as well as an effort to promote Nunn, who is locked in a tough re-election fight in the 3rd District. Nunn’s seat is one of three that Democrats have hopes of flipping this fall in a state that also is expected to have competitive open races for governor and the Senate.

Read the full story here.

Trump-backed challenger Tracey Powell wins the Republican primary for Indiana state Senate District 21, NBC News projects, defeating state Sen. Jim Buck.

See the latest results here.

Incumbent Greg Goode wins the Republican primary for Indiana state Senate District 38, NBC News projects, defeating a Trump-backed challenger.

See the latest results here.

Sherrod Brown wins Ohio Democratic Senate primary, NBC News projects

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Former Sen. Sherrod Brown has won the Democratic Senate primary in Ohio, NBC News projects, setting up a key general election matchup this fall against Republican Sen. Jon Husted.

See the latest results here.

Ramaswamy wins the Republican primary for Ohio governor, NBC News projects

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Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has won the Republican primary for Ohio governor, NBC News projects. He will face Amy Acton, a former state health director, who won the Democratic nomination without opposition, in the general election.

See the latest results here.

Polls are closing in Ohio as voters there pick nominees in big races for governor, the Senate and the House, among other campaigns.

Follow live results here.

Trump-endorsed Blake Fiechter wins the Republican primary for Indiana state Senate District 19, NBC News projects. He defeats state Sen. Travis Holdman, a member of party leadership.

See the latest results here.

While former Vice President Mike Pence stayed silent during December’s redistricting battle in Indiana, he openly broke with Trump this spring in his home county’s Senate primary.

Pence endorsed state Sen. Jim Buck last month, throwing his support behind a veteran lawmaker whom Trump is seeking to oust.

“I have known State Senator Jim Buck throughout my years serving Indiana from the State House to the White House and I have always seen him as a man of integrity and one of Indiana’s most conservative state legislators,” Pence said in a statement last month, The Indianapolis Star reported.

Buck faces Trump-endorsed Tracey Powell, a Tipton County commissioner.

The first polls are closing at 6 p.m. ET in Indiana, where Trump has endorsed candidates running against seven incumbent Republican state senators.

A vote center in West Lafayette, Ind., on Tuesday.  Cara Penquite / AP

Polls have closed in all but one of those races. The remaining one will close at 7 p.m. ET.

Seven Indiana Republican state senators are facing off today against primary challengers backed by Trump as he seeks to exact revenge over a failed redistricting plan.

Trump’s intervention in the typically quiet local primary races has brought a flood of money and national attention to the state. Roughly $12 million has been spent on advertising across the seven contests, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, most of which has come from Trump-allied outside groups opposing the incumbents.

The Republican-led state Senate dealt Trump a rare rebuke when it voted down a redrawn congressional map he backed that was designed to result in two additional seats for the GOP. It was part of a broader mid-decade redistricting battle playing out across the country ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, when control of the narrowly divided U.S. House will be up for grabs.

But ultimately, the heavy-handed pressure campaign from Trump and his allies backfired. Now, they are revisiting similar lines of attack in their bid to unseat the seven lawmakers, turning the contests into another test of Trump’s grip on the Republican Party.

Read the full story here.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the nation’s top regulator for publicly traded companies, issued a proposal today that would give companies the option to report their earnings and financials only twice per year.

Under current SEC rules, in place since the 1970s, companies are required to report earnings after each quarter and annually.

Read the full story here.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters today that there is a "lot to talk about" with Pope Leo XIV during his trip to the Vatican this week but that the visit is not in response to Trump's recent attacks on the pope.

"We share with the Catholic Church a concern about the destruction of religious liberty, the persecution of Christian minorities," Rubio, a Catholic, told reporters at a White House briefing.

"So we have a lot to talk about with them, and I engage with them quite a bit on that front. So the trip is really not tied to anything other than the fact that it would be normal for us to engage with them," he continued.

Secretary Rubio: 'There is a lot to talk about' in meeting with Pope Leo

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Trump has criticized the pope several times in recent weeks, particularly as Leo has made it clear that he opposes the war in Iran, while Vance, who's Catholic, said last month that the pope should “be careful” when he talks about theology following his criticisms of the war.

Rubio said at his White House news briefing this afternoon that Operation Epic Fury is over, reiterating the administration’s position last week that hostilities with Iran had ended.

“The operation is over,” Rubio said, referring to the military campaign against Iran that started Feb. 28.

“Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation,” he added. “We’re not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing today that Project Freedom, which aims to guide neutral ships through the Strait of Hormuz, is “separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury.”

Eric Trump this afternoon posted the new logo for Palm Beach Airport, which the Florida Legislature voted to name in honor of Donald Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed that bill into law in March, with the official name change scheduled to take effect July 1.

Vice President JD Vance, with his son Vivek, votes in Cincinnati today. Roberto Schmidt / Pool via Getty Images

The vice president stopped in Ohio today to vote in the state’s primary election before heading to Iowa to speak at a manufacturing facility in Des Moines.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to brief reporters at the White House. This is the first press briefing since press secretary Karoline Leavitt went on maternity leave.

WASHINGTON — For months, Trump portrayed the big new ballroom that he’s building on White House grounds as a gift to the nation, courtesy of patriotic private donors.

“And by the way, no government funds,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last November.

“These are all private individuals that put up a lot of money to build the ballroom,” he added. “Not one penny is being used from the federal government.”

But the gleaming 90,000 square-foot space that he repeatedly said would cost the public nothing may ultimately leave taxpayers on the hook for $1 billion, due to new security enhancements that are tied to the project.

Read the full story here.

The Justice Department is seeking the names and contact information of election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, who worked during the 2020 presidential election, according to legal filings.

The Justice Department filed a subpoena in April to try to force the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections to release the names, addresses and contact information for 2020 election staff members and volunteers. The grand jury subpoena was made public on Monday as the Fulton County board urged a judge to quash it. The New York Times was first to report on the subpoena.

Read the full story here.

Several Republican primary voters in St. John, Indiana, who spoke to NBC News were split on whether to support incumbent state Sen. Dan Dernulc, who voted against Trump's redistricting proposal for the state.

The president endorsed Dernulc's opponent, Trevor De Vries, and criticized Dernulc as a “‘RINO” who "has failed the fantastic people of Indiana so badly.”

Joey Lax Salinas said he did not support redistricting efforts, so he voted against the candidate who supported redistricting, an apparent reference to De Vries.

Phil Borkstrom said he supported redistricting efforts, adding that he voted “to show my disapproval” for Dernulc and “hopefully adjust it going forward.”

David Haymond, 5, stands with his dad, Ross Haymond, while he votes Tuesday in West Lafayette, Ind.  Cara Penquite / AP

Another voter who declined to provide his name said he "never really even considered" Trump's endorsement as a factor in which candidate to support. That voter supported De Vries.

Several others mentioned high gas prices when discussing political issues that resonated with them.

Daniel Vincent said gas prices are "ridiculous," but he "can't blame any particular party for that, because of what's going on with the different situation, wars we have going on in Iran, Venezuela."

Ann Tiemens said Trump's endorsement did not really influence her, but declined to say whom she supported. Asked about issues that mattered to her, she pointed to the economy and rising gas prices.

"Every time you shop, it seems like it always costs more," she said. "You know, get gas, it's more. Anywhere, anywhere you go, it's always more."

What voters say about state redistricting ahead of Indiana, Ohio primary races

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An off-duty Secret Service officer was arrested in Miami-Dade County at around midnight yesterday and charged with indecent exposure after allegedly masturbating in a hotel hallway, according to a police affidavit. 

The officer, identified in the arrest record as John Spillman, 33, was placed on administrative leave, Richard Macauley, the chief of the Secret Service’s uniformed division, said in a statement obtained by NBC station WTVJ.

Read the full story here.

Trump downplayed the fighting between the U.S. and Iran amid the ceasefire today, calling the war that his administration launched along with Israeli forces a "skirmish."

"I call it a skirmish because Iran has no chance. They never did. They know it," Trump told reporters during the signing of a proclamation related to youth fitness.

Asked what Iran would need to do to violate the ceasefire, Trump said, "Well, you’ll find out, because I’ll let you know."

"And they know what to do," he added. "They know what not to do more importantly, actually."

Trump derided the Iranian "fast boat" attacks on U.S. Navy vessels and commercial ships, calling them "little boats with peashooters."

"Their navy is comprised of — they call them little boats," the president said. "They’re fast. Yeah, they’re so fast that that they had eight of them, and they’re all gone. And they’re fast, but they’re not fast like a missile. A missile is slightly faster."

Gas prices in the United States have now reached $4.48 a gallon on average, up more than 30 cents in the last week and more than $1.50 since the Iran war began. A recent poll shows 44% of Americans have cut back on driving amid the rising costs, but Trump has repeatedly assured that prices will come down when the war is over. NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez reports for "TODAY."

Trump addresses soaring gas prices as average hits $4.48

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WASHINGTON — Homeland Security immigration leaders disagreed so vehemently over how to accomplish Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people during his first year back in office that during a meeting over the issue, handlers had to “clear the room” to defuse tensions, two DHS officials familiar with the meeting told NBC News. 

At the center of the disagreement were Caleb Vitello, then the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Scott and his top aides were pushing a plan that had been blessed by newly installed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 

Read the full story here.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military said it launched another strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea, killing two people yesterday.

The Trump administration’s campaign of blowing up alleged drug-trafficking vessels in Latin American waters has persisted since early September and killed at least 188 people in total. Other strikes have taken place in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Read the full story here.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news briefing this morning that Iran's multiple attacks on commercial vessels and U.S. forces since the start of the ceasefire were below the threshold for renewed combat operations.

"Since the ceasefire was announced, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times and seized two container ships, and they've attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times, all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations," Caine said.

Caine said later that "no adversary should mistake our current restraint with a lack of resolve."

Later, Caine was asked to share the threshold for restarting major combat operations.

"The threshold of restarting is a political decision above my pay grade," Caine replied.

The ceasefire in the Middle East was in peril today after the United States and Iran traded fire and threats over Trump’s new mission to force open the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s “Project Freedom” aims to use the U.S. military to break Tehran’s chokehold on the critical waterway, which has throttled international shipping and sent energy prices soaring.

Read the full story here.

U.S. and Iran trade strikes in Strait of Hormuz as tensions escalate

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The Secret Service said agents shot a man yeserday near the White House who is alleged to have opened fire after he was confronted by authorities.

Two law enforcement officials identified the suspect as 45-year-old Michael Marx, who holds a Texas driver’s license. He remained hospitalized today with multiple gunshot wounds, including to his back and leg, and his injuries are not considered life-threatening, according to two law enforcement sources.

Read the full story here.

Vice President JD Vance lands here today in an effort to boost the re-election campaign of Rep. Zach Nunn — the latest development that underscores Republicans’ midterm jitters in a state that has moved to the right in recent years.

In Iowa’s race for governor, the GOP is dealing with a jumbled June 2 primary field while the presumptive Democratic nominee, State Auditor Rob Sand, coasts without opposition.

And in the battle for an open Senate seat, the main Republican-aligned Senate super PAC in Washington is preparing to pump nearly $30 million worth of advertising into a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the chamber in 18 years.

Read the full story here.

Trump’s effort to defeat Republicans who have opposed key priorities turns today to Indiana’s state Senate primaries, in which he and his allies are trying to unseat seven GOP state senators who voted last year against redrawing the state’s congressional map.

Those races are the highest-profile primaries in a slate of contests across Indiana and Ohio, where voters will decide whether those lawmakers should be punished for frustrating Trump’s effort to pad the GOP’s slim margin in the House and also set the stage for key elections this fall.

Here’s a look at what to watch for in those primaries, as well as in a special legislative election with major implications for the balance of power in Michigan, a key swing state.

Read the full story here.