KEARNEYSVILLE, West Virginia — Ted Cruz has a competitive reelection race to run back in Texas. On Thursday, though, he showed up 1,200 miles away in a bid to shape Senate Republicans’ post-Mitch McConnell future.

Cruz was in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle to try to boost an underdog conservative, Rep. Alex Mooney, who faces Gov. Jim Justice in the May 14 GOP primary. Justice is the Senate minority leader’s star recruit, hand-picked to pressure Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) into retirement and make the seat Republicans’ easiest pickup on this fall’s map.

Yet to Cruz, Mooney’s candidacy is a way to push the entire party rightward — and make life more of a nightmare for party leaders. A longtime House Freedom Caucus member, Mooney is running as an insurgent from the right, while Justice is a more conciliatory ex-Democrat who has supported bipartisan compromises.

“How many of y’all have been frustrated by Republicans in the Senate? I’m going to raise my hand. It is maddening,” Cruz told a crowd of nearly 200 people in a sweltering horse auction center, likening many politicians to spineless animals. “One more conservative makes an enormous difference in the Senate.”

Mooney trails Justice badly, according to nearly all public polling, but his candidacy is a way to survey the GOP base about the anti-establishment sentiment that’s spiking among congressional Republicans. Cruz is looking for new recruits to the rabble-rousing crew of GOP senators who thrive on causing headaches for party leaders — so whether or not Mooney beats Justice, and he’s not likely to, Cruz’s endorsement stamps him as a favorite of the insurgent wing.

The same sort of longshot right-flank rebellion is also happening in the House where Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is trying to oust a speaker who looks on paper like her natural conservative ally. But Mooney and Greene have the same problem: The party establishment now includes former President Donald Trump, who has sided with the enemies they decry as out of touch with real conservatives.

Mooney is “going to be crushed,” said former Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), a Justice supporter who lost to Mooney in a 2022 House primary due to Trump’s endorsement.

Either Republican candidate is essentially guaranteed to win the seat in November given Manchin’s retirement, making West Virginia a perfect test case for the party’s red-state mood. Mooney is eager to make the primary a contest of ideologies — a rarity in a Senate cycle where nearly every other GOP contest has hinged on who can compete best in a general election.

Mooney is trying to generate momentum any way he can, including the release of internal polling and a Mountain State visit from Cruz. Mooney has even resorted to using Justice’s Internet famous pet “Baby Dog” against him, claiming that the bulldog who’s ubiquitous in the governor’s messaging knows the truth about him.

“Baby Dog knows Gov. Justice as good as anybody. He knows the man’s a liberal,” Mooney said in an interview. Justice’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Mooney opposed sending more U.S. aid to Ukraine and voted against the bipartisan House government spending bill. He beat McKinley two years ago in part because — in the defeated man’s telling — Trump was irate enough about McKinley’s vote for a bipartisan infrastructure bill to endorse Mooney, who opposed that legislation. Mooney also weathered attacks on his Maryland lineage to win that race.

Pro-Mooney conservatives are particularly frustrated over a potential missed opportunity to change the complexion of the Senate GOP after bitter internal splits over funding Ukraine, government spending and reauthorizing warrantless foreign surveillance. John Fredericks, a pro-Trump conservative radio host from Virginia and a Mooney supporter, said electing Justice amounts to a “complete waste of a seat” for the GOP.

Yet Fredericks and Cruz are exceptions in a Republican Party that’s wary of crossing Trump. Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) are the only chamber Republicans siding against Justice. And the conservative Club for Growth did not follow through with its pledge to pour $10 million in the race, spending only about $1.8 million, according to media tracking firm AdImpact.

David McIntosh, president for Club for Growth Action, said the group believes “Mooney is the best conservative for the seat, but President Trump’s endorsement hardened Justice’s support and there wasn’t a viable path forward.”

“They committed. I guess they looked at poll numbers and they canceled,” said Fredericks, who drove his “MAGA Bus” to the event here. “You believe in your candidates or you don’t. And they obviously don’t.”

Mooney declined to criticize the conservative Club, which often plays in red-state primaries but is trying to rebuild its ties to Trump. He did concede the cavalry did not come for him in a primary where total GOP spending is relatively low for an open seat — around $13 million — and a few extra million could have made a huge difference.

“People are missing it,” Mooney said. “It’s not just Club for Growth. There’s a lot of groups out there that exist to help conservatives.”

Mooney does not currently plan to vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson this week, a sign he’s got a practical side as well. Still, there’s little debate among the top Senate brass that Justice would be more of a team player, in the mold of more pragmatic center-right Republicans who could form a GOP governing wing in 2025. That will probably be helpful for McConnell’s successor as Republican leader.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who backs Justice and often is open to bipartisan dealmaking, said Justice was “initially perceived and known to be the stronger candidate, and now it’s going to be what kind of senator he would become. And I feel very comfortable with that.”

In one of the reddest states in the country, it’s something of a surprise that West Virginia GOP voters aren’t reflexively seeking the most conservative candidate in the race. Still, the state party is filled with thousands of former Democrats who don’t adhere neatly to ideological lines — just like Justice, who gave Trump an early triumph in 2017 when he switched parties live on stage.

If there’s a bright side for Mooney, it’s that Trump is not directly rallying voters against him. In addition, Justice’s campaign appears to be taking Mooney less than seriously, giving the dark horse the stage to himself at times. On the other hand, the lack of activity suggests Justice believes he’s heading for a landslide win.

“Why go out and mess it up?” Manchin observed.

Still, a West Virginia trip was a no-brainer for Cruz. He’s maintained his own brand in the party even after running against Trump in 2016 and then becoming an ally by championing several candidates who put him at odds with the former president.

Unlike Mooney, Cruz won’t quite describe Justice as “Manchin 2.0;” Justice is likely to be his colleague, after all. But Cruz is clear about how important the race is for his mission to drive his party further rightward.

People “are frustrated that the Senate Republican Conference doesn’t stand up and fight for conservative principles. The only way to change that is to elect strong conservatives. And especially from bright-red states,” Cruz said. “There’s no reason not to.”

Ally Mutnick contributed to this report.

Progressive lawmakers this week compared recent police crackdowns on student anti-war demonstrations to the deadly response to anti-Vietnam War campus protests over 50 years ago, warning the Biden administration not to repeat history.

In a social media post Saturday, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) marked the 54th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, when the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students and injured nine others at an anti-Vietnam War protest. In her post, she compared the historic tragedy to the recent wave of police crackdowns on campuses across the country.

“On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war,” Bush wrote. “Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech & assembly upon which it was founded.”

In a similar post, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) wrote: “54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State. Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs. We can’t silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power.”

Students protesting for Palestinian liberation at campuses across the country have also referenced the legacy of student resistance and state crackdowns at inflection points throughout American history.

As Columbia University students occupied the school’s Hamilton Hall last week — which was similarly occupied during anti-war and anti-apartheid student protests in 1968, 1985 and 1992 — Columbia University Apartheid Divest made comparisons to deadly clashes between students and law enforcement in the past, warning administrators and trustees: “Do not incite another Kent or Jackson State by bringing soldiers and police officers with weapons onto our campus. Students’ blood will be on your hands.”

Since April 18, more than 2,100 people linked to campus protests against the Israel-Gaza war have been arrested by police — sometimes arriving at campuses in riot gear or with weapons drawn — at over 50 schools across the country, according to the Associated Press. A small number of injuries have been reported, mostly a result of clashes between protesters and counterprotesters. There have been no casualties reported to date.

Other progressive lawmakers recently took the opportunity to criticize America’s policies towards the Israel-Gaza war and make a comparison to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday went so far as to warn that Biden’s Israel policy and response to students’ anti-war protests “may be Biden’s Vietnam.”

“I worry very much that President Biden is putting himself in a position where he has alienated not just young people, but a lot of the Democratic base,” Sanders told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

Civil rights leader Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) echoed Sanders’ warning on Friday, recalling President Lyndon Johnson’s fall from favor due to his escalation of American military involvement in Vietnam.

“I was around during Vietnam. I was around during President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs that brought on voting rights,” Clyburn told CNN’s Sara Sidner. “He was vice president when we got the Civil Rights Act of ’64, he brought on Medicare, Medicaid — all those things that made us a great society, he was the engineer of, and all that went down the drain because of Vietnam.”

Clyburn, whom Biden awarded the presidential medal of freedom later on Friday, added “I am where I am today because of protests,” but emphasized, “We did it nonviolently.”

Responding to a question about Clyburn’s Johnson reference at a Friday night press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre highlighted Biden’s record of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, “end[ing] the longest war in American history,” and referenced the president’s earlier speech that touched on the “right to dissent” — but stressed that it should be done peacefully.

INDIANAPOLIS — Having a business record with ties to China made little difference for a Republican six years ago running in a GOP primary in a deep-red state like Indiana. Now, in 2024, with the voting public increasingly seeing the Asian superpower as a threat to America’s own position in the world, that’s no longer the case.

Just ask Mike Braun.

When he ran for the Senate six years ago, Braun, eschewing a jacket and tie for his trademark blue shirt, vanquished two GOP lawmakers in a slash-and-burn primary as an outsider businessperson. Never mind his record of importing auto parts to his distribution company in Jasper, Indiana.

Now, though, China has become a major point of contention in the state’s gubernatorial campaign — a sign of how dramatically the politics surrounding China have shifted within the GOP. The threat of a rising China has been a dominant theme throughout the Republican primary here, inspiring campaign ads, policy proposals and, sometimes, attacks. This year, the Indiana General Assembly took steps to prohibit sister-city agreements with China, and the state’s public retirement system is divesting pension investments from the Asian nation.

And Braun himself attacked one of his opponents, the Fort Wayne developer Eric Doden, as a “pro-China RINO,” dinging what he described as his “support for Communist China.” (The source of the attack appears to be an economic development grant Doden, as a state economic development official, gave to General Electric Aviation to expand its operations in Indiana; the deal was signed off on at the time by Indiana Commerce Secretary Victor Smith, now a major Braun donor).

Braun, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, will leave the Senate at the end of his first term and is on track to win Indiana’s Republican gubernatorial primary on May 7, in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the position since 2000. As a candidate, he has argued that he has a “proven conservative track record of holding China accountable” in a primary that has largely focused on the Midwestern state’s vulnerabilities to the superpower.

But as the owner of an auto parts distribution company, Braun has economic ties to China, including his own company importing Chinese-made parts and leasing land near his headquarters to a second company that routinely imported products to the U.S. from the country.

And unlike when he ran for Senate, Braun’s business record, while not in direct contention with his policy proposals, cuts a very different way at a time when the superpower is viewed negatively by a vast majority of the population, even as he has taken a tough stance on China, saying the state “should not” negotiate with Chinese companies and touting a bill to prohibit the purchase of American farmland by those associated with China. They also show the difficulty of decoupling two massive, intertwined economies.

Meyer Distributing, the company Braun has long owned and used in his political career to define himself as an “outsider conservative businessman,” still relies on China for some of its product lines.

As recently as April 19, Meyer imported to its Jasper headquarters products from Changzhou Sunwood International Trading Co., Ltd., which bills itself as the “largest and best truck bed cover manufacturer in China,” according to shipping data from ImportGenius. The foreign port listed: Shanghai.

Braun’s campaign directed POLITICO to Meyer for questions about its recent shipment. A spokesperson for Meyer did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition, the company has a longtime relationship with CYC Engineering, an aftermarket auto parts manufacturer that leases land from Braun just a tenth a mile away from Meyer’s headquarters, and sources about 95 percent of its products from China, according to Panjiva, the supply chain research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

CYC’s CEO, Yung Jen Chi, of Union City, Calif., maxed out to Braun’s 2018 Senate campaign, campaign finance records reported here for the first time show. Jen Chi did not respond to questions from POLITICO. CYC sells the Raptor series of truck running boards and other miscellaneous parts, which are sourced from China. A 2018 Associated Press investigation found that CYC had received 400 shipments of products from Chinese manufacturers over the course of a decade — at the same time Braun was building both his personal wealth and political profile at Meyer.

Since Braun took his Senate seat in 2019, he has stepped away from day-to-day operations of Meyer, and his sons have taken over the business. But Meyer is still a central part of his political image. He cites the company frequently while on the trail and has sat for interviews with reporters there during his gubernatorial campaign. A campaign spokesperson said even though he maintained office space there, it was leased by the campaign.

Braun’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview, but pointed to his Senate bill, introduced last year, that would “prohibit the purchase of U.S. farmland by those associated with the governments of our foreign adversaries,” including China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Braun defended his record as job creator of a company “that employs thousands of Americans,” and cited this story’s proximity to the Tuesday primary.

“Mike Braun stood with President Trump to take on China and will continue the fight to bring jobs back to Indiana as Governor,” the spokesperson said.

Braun’s own dealings with China made news in his 2018 Senate race, when the Associated Press reported that Promaxx Automotive, which Braun’s company had patented, made the parts in China.

Meyer’s dealings with China and Chinese-sourced companies illustrates the difficulty of delinking the two economic giants, even at a time when China is becoming politically verboten territory. As recently as 2019, two-term Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, who is term-limited, traveled to China, which supported 21 Indiana businesses at the time.

In every public poll, Braun has led the six-person GOP gubernatorial field in Indiana — which includes Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, Indianapolis businessperson Brad Chambers, Doden, former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, and faith leader Jamie Reitenour — since jumping into the race in 2022.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Braun in November, and Donald Trump Jr. appeared at a rally for him and other down-ballot candidates here earlier this spring.