Republicans are continuing to backtrack on years of conspiracy-theory precedent after last year’s midterms taught them that demonizing certain popular types of voting for the sake of Donald Trump’s grievances might not be the best way to win friends and influence people.

The latest MAGA fan and one-time Big Liar to embrace the Republican National Committee’s early-voting about-face initiative: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

QAnon congresswoman-turned-GOP House leadership darling Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) membership with the House Freedom Caucus has been in question ever since she laid down her life/remaining dignity to back House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in his speakership race. Since then, she’s been picking fights and at odds with members of the rebellious faction for being too tight with the establishment crowd.

While there’s been speculation for weeks that the Georgia congresswoman may soon get the boot from the fringe group, it turns out that the Freedom Caucus has actually already voted to punish Greene for forgetting where she came from.

Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed the Arizona secretary of state’s office as recently as May for information related to the unsuccessful lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party about supposed errors in the 2020 election. As you’ll recall, Arizona was a hotbed of conspiracy theories tied to the effort to overturn the election after President Biden flipped the longtime Republican stronghold state, leading to Trumpworld outrage, a phony and expensive state election “audit” and the lawsuits.

The Washington Post published a piece this weekend on the ways in which moderate Republicans in the House are getting sick of the far-right Freedom Caucus’ ongoing revolt as its members flex their power over House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), pushing increasingly extreme and sometimes bizarre messaging bills that will harm those in swing districts in 2024. There’s an interesting nugget of reporting tucked into the piece that touches on the trend we’ve seen since Roe was overturned: Republicans are seeing the writing on the wall with abortion and it’s not looking pretty.

There is a ballot initiative on track to go before New York voters next fall that, if approved, would codify abortion access and several other things, including LGBTQ rights, into the state constitution. While it is jarring to imagine a world in which such a protection would be necessary in very blue New York, it falls in line with efforts in other blue and purple — and even some red — states post-Dobbs, as the rogue Supreme Court signals that other privacy-related rights may also be at risk.

But New York Democrats are also taking political lessons from other states that have witnessed the energizing power of abortion for the party in elections since Roe’s overturning and are viewing the ballot measure as a tool to boost Democrats’ chances of retaking the House.

The oversaturation strategy continues.

Donald Trump is leaning in hard on the classics to deflect responsibility for the charges against him in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, and especially so in the wake of new, seemingly incriminating tapes of him admitting to aspects of the charges he currently faces. His latest remarks to Fox News are a pivot back to a vintage yet reliable genre of Trumpism, using “stable genius” energy and “fake news” schoolyard bullying to shrug off the fact that the audio recording CNN published this week features him admitting he shouldn’t have the classified documents he’s flinging around for all to see.

As my colleague David Kurtz unpacked in today’s Morning Memo, there’ve been reports in the last few days that suggest that special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the 2020 election and Jan. 6 is very much alive and well post-Mar-a-Lago indictment — including reports of some key immunity deals.

If Republicans are flailing on abortion messaging heading into 2024 (they are), the Biden White House is doing the exact opposite.

The midterm red wave that wasn’t was one thing. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race was another. 2024 Republicans’ ongoing, awkward, obvious flailing on abortion has confirmed the severity of the dilemma for the party. And the primary elections in Virginia this week bring us the latest datapoint on how potent and energizing the unpopularity of the Dobbs ruling and the passage of increasingly restrictives bans on abortion has been and will be for 2024 voters.