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Article snippet: PHOENIX — The tweet landed without warning or elaboration, just days before a presidential visit to Arizona: In the early hours of Thursday, President Trump, not for the first time, savaged Senator Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, calling him “toxic” and “WEAK,” hailing Mr. Flake’s primary challenger and drawing fierce pushback from fellow Republicans. By tiptoeing to the edge of endorsing Kelli Ward, a far-right former state senator, over an incumbent Republican, Mr. Trump further roiled a state and region already badly shaken by his campaign and its aftermath. Well before Mr. Trump’s rise, a pair of Western states — Arizona and Nevada — foreshadowed some of the consuming clashes of his presidency, over the definition of conservatism and the struggle for power between diverse, booming cities and far-flung rural precincts. But both states have emerged anew this year as a defining battleground for both parties, in no small part because of Mr. Trump’s thirst for vengeance against Republicans who have crossed him. In Nevada, Senator Dean Heller, who made a great show of denouncing an early effort by Republicans to repeal the federal health care law, drew a primary contest last week from Danny Tarkanian, a frequent political candidate who has branded himself a cheerleader for the White House. In Arizona, which Mr. Trump plans to visit Tuesday, there is Mr. Flake, who shunned Mr. Trump in 2016 and recently published a book denouncing his political worldview, alongsi... Link to the full article to read more