The party’s front-runner in Pennsylvania, Sean Parnell, is awaiting a judge’s ruling on accusations, which he denies, that he choked his estranged wife and hit one of his children. The top-polling Missouri GOP candidate, former governor Eric Greitens, is trying to downplay his resignation from office after allegedly tying up his mistress in the basement of his marital home. And in Georgia, the party’s likely nominee, Herschel Walker, is bracing for a Democratic advertising assault about his ex-wife’s claims that he threatened her with a gun.

Competitive primaries elsewhere have pushed the debate in the Republican Party far outside the comfort zone of general election strategists, as the candidates fall over each other to indulge former president Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories. To top it all off, the party’s top Senate recruit, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, shocked party insiders last week by saying he didn’t want the job.

The challenges have forced Republicans to play defense, often against fellow members of their own party, in multiple states that Biden won in 2020, like Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania. The prospect of fierce and damaging primaries in some states risks weakening candidates for a general election, when Republicans seek to win over voters who previously rejected Trump.