Businessman Braun the projected winner in nasty Indiana GOP Senate primary race

Candidate Mike Braun is projected by Fox News and Vox to be the winner of the Republican US Senate primary race in Indiana.

The primary between Braun and his fellow contenders, sitting Congressmen Luke Messer and Todd Rokita, turned nasty with accusations thrown at all candidates. A Republican National Committee official representing Indiana, John Hammond III, said at one point: "This race has slowly but surely descended into Dante's Inferno. It will provide the Democrats an awful lot of free opposition research."

All three candidates claim they are fully supportive of President Trump's agenda, and all three vowed to be able to beat Democrat incumbent Senator Joe Donnelly in the fall.

Braun is a multi-millionaire who loaned over $5.4 million to his own campaign, outspending each of his opponents roughly 2-to-1. He was attacked by his opponents for his record of repeatedly voting in Democratic primaries — but Braun insists he's a lifelong Republican who explained his actions as a strategy to impact local races.

Rokita and Messer's attacks on one another were more personal, with Rokita's campaign writing a children's book criticizing Messer for selling his home in Indiana and residing in Washington DC after winning his US House seat. Messer was also his hard by Rokita over previous drunken driving convictions; but Messer called the attacks a "last minute dirty trick from Rokita's failing campaign."

With nearly half of the states votes in, Braun is leading the race with 41 percent, while Messer and Rokita are at 30 and 29 percent respectively.