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In today’s edition … Moreno wins Ohio Senate primary … The dementia of Trump’s own father shadows his attacks on mental fitness … but first …

The campaign

Rep. Mike Bost appears to barely beat back a primary challenge. He’s not the only one in trouble.

Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) appears to be narrowly surviving a primary challenge, leading state Sen. Darren Bailey 52 percent to 48 percent as of early Wednesday morning. 

Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) also hung on, defeating several primary challengers.

But they’re not the last incumbents facing primary peril this year. 

Several members of the Squad — the group of six of the most progressive House Democrats — are facing more moderate challengers. Two Republicans who voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last year, including the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, are also staring down challengers. So are several other Republicans.

Here are six primaries we’re watching:

Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.)

Bhavini Patel, a member of the borough council in Edgewood, Pa., a Pittsburgh suburb, is running against Lee, a freshman whom Patel’s ads accuse of seeking to “undermine Joe Biden” and “abolish the police.”

Patel is running with the support of Moderate PAC, a super PAC that’s spending $270,000 on ads backing her ahead of the April 23 primary.

Lee has denounced Moderate PAC for accepting a $1 million contribution in 2022 from Jeffrey Yass, a Republican megadonor.

"Super PACs bankrolled by Republican billionaires — let alone Trump’s latest cabinet pick — have no place in our Democratic primaries or our democracy,” Lee said in a statement to the Early, referring to a recent report that former president Donald Trump is considering Yass for a role in his cabinet if he’s elected president.

Ty Strong, Moderate PAC’s president, said the super PAC is backing Patel because it feared Lee could lose the district — which President Biden carried by 20 points in 2020 — in the general election. (Lee won by 12 points in 2022.)

While Yass gave to the super PAC in 2022, he isn’t paying for the ads against Lee, Strong said. Those ads were funded in part by the Pittsburgh developers and Democratic donors Todd Reidbord and Gregg Perelman, he said, as well as the International Union of Operating Engineers. (The super PAC will need to disclose its donors next month ahead of the primary.)

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.)

Gonzales failed to win a majority of the vote in the March 5 primary, forcing him a May 28 runoff with the runner-up, Brandon Herrera.

Herrera has criticized Gonzales in ads for voting to set up a commission to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, among other things.

Failing to crack 50 percent in a primary is a potential sign of weakness for an incumbent — but Gonzales pointed out he won the most votes in all 29 counties in his enormous border district. “I will win all 29 counties again on May 28,” he told our colleague Marianna Sotomayor.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)

Mace is one of eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy last year, incurring the former speaker’s wrath. Catherine Templeton, the former president of a brick company, is running against her in the June 11 primary.

Mace scored a coup this month when Trump endorsed her, leading Mace to urge Templeton to drop out of the race.

But Templeton says she’s not going anywhere.

“Like most of Nancy’s career, this is an odd and somewhat feeble attempt to attract attention,” Chet Martin, Templeton’s campaign manager, wrote in an email to the Early. “We’re going to let the voters decide on June 11th.”

Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.)

Another South Carolina Republican is facing a primary challenger for the opposite reason: supporting McCarthy. State Rep. Adam Morgan is challenging Timmons — who campaigned on behalf of Trump ahead of South Carolina primary and has a conservative voting record — from the right, citing his vote for McCarthy for speaker.

Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) endorsed Morgan earlier this month. They’re not the only House Republicans seeking to defeat one of their colleagues: Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Mary Miller (R-Ill.) endorsed Bailey over Bost.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)

John McGuire, a former Navy Seal, is challenging Good, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, in the June 18 primary. 

Good is potentially vulnerable for two reasons: He endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over Trump in the Republican presidential primary — prompting Chris LaCivita, a top Trump campaign adviser, to warn in January that “Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him" — and he voted to oust McCarthy last year.

The House Freedom Fund, a PAC aligned with the Freedom Caucus, has sent out mailers backing Good, while a new super PAC, Virginians for Conservative Leadership, has sent texts and mailers opposing him. The Republican Main Street Partnership, which supports Republicans who are focused on governing, has pledged to spent $500,000 to help defeat Good.

Good appears to realize he could be in trouble.

He plans to campaign next week with Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Chip Roy (R-Tex.), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.) as well as Mark Meadows, a former Freedom Caucus chairman who went on to serve as Trump’s White House chief of staff.

Other House Republicans are supporting McGuire — but Good says that won’t hurt him.

“Most of them should come and campaign for my opponent in my district," he told us. “That would be what would really help me.”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.)

Bowman is facing a challenge from George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, motivated in part by Bowman’s criticism of Israel.

He’s one of three Squad members facing tough primaries this summer, along with Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

Bowman told us late last month that he and his team would “have to work our butts off to win the primary” on June 25.

• “I’m for a ceasefire. He’s not,” Bowman said, describing the differences between himself and Latimer. “He’s a corporate Dem backed by AIPAC money and Republican money. I don’t take any corporate dollars.” (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has endorsed Latimer as well as Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor who’s challenging Bush.)

Latimer described himself in a statement to the Early as “a lifelong progressive Democrat with a track record of defending abortion rights, expanding civil rights, standing up to the NRA to pass common sense gun laws, fighting for the environment, voting for higher wages for working people and defeating MAGA Republicans.”

"I support pausing the violence in Gaza, as I’ve said publicly, but not unconditionally and certainly not as long as the hostages remain in terrorists’ hands," Latimer said.

Moreno wins Ohio Senate primary

The former car dealer Bernie Moreno easily won the Senate primary in Ohio with the help of Trump’s endorsement, defeating state Sen. Matt Dolan and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

Moreno will face Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in November in a crucial race that Democrats need to win to keep control of the Senate.

Democrats wanted to run against Moreno and spent millions of dollars on ads trying to ensure he became the nominee.

Moreno predicted in his victory speech that Biden would weigh Brown down in a state Trump is expected to win, our colleague Patrick Svitek writes. “If Joe Biden enters Ohio, Sherrod Brown’s going to fly out of here like a scared cat,” Moreno said.

Programming Note

Don’t miss it! Thursday at 9 a.m., Washington Post Live hosts “The Futurist Summit: The New Age of Tech.” Leigh Ann will sit down with Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) about efforts to regulate A.I, their views on TikTok and much more. The event will also feature interviews with DARPA Director Stefanie Tompkins, Open AI Vice President Anna Makanju, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and others. Register here to watch.

What we're watching

At the White House

Biden is in Phoenix today where he will announce that his administration has awarded tech giant Intel up to $8.5 billion in grants and $11 billion in loans to support computer-chip production in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon as part of the CHIPS and Science Act. 

In turn, Intel will invest over $100 billion in the projects, senior administration officials told reporters. The investment will create nearly 30,000 jobs. 

The action is “one of the nation’s biggest ever investments in high-tech manufacturing seen as crucial to national and economic security,” our colleague Jeanne Whalen writes. “The funding is a key plank of Biden’s program to channel federal investment into domestic industry and infrastructure to boost U.S. competitiveness and create jobs.”

On the Hill

We’re watching to see if congressional leaders actually release the text of the final six appropriations bills. Government funding runs out Friday at midnight.

Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee is holding yet another hearing alleging "influence peddling" by President Biden.

In a sign of how serious (or not) the latest hearing in Republicans’ flailing impeachment inquiry is, two convicted felons are scheduled to testify. Republican witnesses include former Biden family associate Tony Bobulinski, who has alleged Biden family impropriety, and Jason Galanis, who is expected to testify remotely from prison where he is serving an 11-year sentence for securities fraud.

The Democratic witness will include Lev Parnas, who was associated with Rudy Giuliani and became a key player in Trump’s first impeachment. Parnas is serving time for fraud and campaign finance violations.

Hunter Biden was invited to testify but has no plans to appear. We’re watching to see if Hunter holds court outside the Capitol like he has twice before when he defied House Republicans’ requests.

In the economy

The Federal Reserve concludes its two-day policy meeting today. Central bankers are expected to leave interest rates unchanged, per our colleague Rachel Siegel. “Officials are also slated to release fresh projections showing what they expect for the economy and how many rate cuts they have penciled in for this year. The most recent forecasts from December included three cuts in 2024. If officials trim that estimate down to two, it will mean they are growing less confident that inflation is reliably on its way down to a more normal 2 percent.”

At Mar-a-Lago

Shadowing Trump’s attacks on mental fitness — his own father’s dementia

Our colleague Michael Kranish examines how Fred Trump Sr.’s descent into dementia shaped his son’s views on mental fitness. Here’s an excerpt:

“Trump’s long fixation on mental fitness followed years of watching his father’s worsening dementia — a formative period that some associates said has been a defining and little-mentioned factor in his life, and which left him with an abiding concern that he might someday inherit the condition,” Michael writes. “While much remains unknown about Alzheimer’s, experts say there is an increased risk of inheriting a gene associated with the disease from a parent.”

• “‘Donald is no doubt fearful of Alzheimer’s,’ said a former senior executive at the Trump Organization, who worked for years with Trump and saw him interact with Fred Trump Sr., and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a confidential relationship. ‘He’s not going to talk about and not going to admit to it. But it’s relevant because every day he is hitting Biden with whether or not he is capable mentally of doing the job.’”

At the White House

Biden’s dreams of ending poverty crumbled. Will he get a second chance?

Our colleague Jeff Stein is out this morning with a look at the Democratic effort to expand child care. Here’s an excerpt:

“Biden came into office promising to expand the safety net as no president has since Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1960s-era Great Society, through sweeping legislation to help the economy recover from the covid pandemic,” Jeff writes. “But even though Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress until last year, he couldn’t fulfill his most ambitious goals, stymied especially by opposition from Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who objected to sending more cash assistance to people as inflation took off.”

• “Biden’s team is trying to make clear that the White House wants to do more … Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill and inside the White House say reviving Biden’s domestic safety net proposals — particularly on child care — would probably be their top legislative priority if they win full control of government in 2025, underscoring the policy stakes of the upcoming election.”

The Media

Must reads

From The Post: 

• Three ways Congress can prevent a shutdown (and one way it can’t). By Jacob Bogage.
• N.C. GOP nominee compared Planned Parenthood, men with saggy pants to KKK. By Hannah Knowles. 
• Appeals court again blocks Texas from arresting and deporting migrants. By Ann E. Marimow and Arelis R. Hernández.
• Netanyahu says ‘no way’ to eliminate Hamas without Rafah operation. By Loveday Morris, Karen DeYoung and Hazem Balousha.
• ICYMI: Drone footage raises questions about Israeli justification for deadly strike on Gaza journalists. By Louisa Loveluck, Imogen Piper, Sarah Cahlan, Hajar Harb and Hazem.

From across the web: 

• Trump suggests he’d support a national ban on abortions around 15 weeks of pregnancy. By the Associated Press’s Michelle L. Price.
• ‘Part of my core’: How Schumer decided to speak out against Netanyahu. By the New York Times’s Annie Karni.

Viral

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