There will be a lot of discussion today of a Trump-backed automaton’s victory last night over Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the eccentric libertarian who was perhaps the last Republican in Congress to reliably choose his right-wing but distinct ideology over Trump’s demands whenever he felt the two diverged. But don’t overlook Tuesday’s primaries for offices that will run Georgia and oversee its elections. The state has, of course, been a hotbed for MAGA hijinks and efforts (still!) to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss. Last night, Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state who famously resisted Trump’s demand that he “find 11,780” votes, lost the GOP gubernatorial primary to two election deniers, one of whom served as a fake elector in Trump’s 2020 scheme. The deeply Trumpy Vernon Jones, meanwhile, is one of two Republican candidates to advance in the race for secretary of state.

Georgia’s runoff is June 16.

You’ve seen the kind of stunning, kind of not stunning news that President Donald Trump has endorsed Ken Paxton for the GOP Senate primary runoff in Texas. Two months ago, Trump was on the cusp of endorsing Sen. John Cornyn, apparently already had the statement written out. Paxton rolled Trump and rolled him hard. The most obvious explanation for this is that the polling is showing that Cornyn is going to lose and Trump absolutely never wants to back a loser. It may be that. But I see something a little different. Trump has been taking out a lot of not-100% MAGA members of Congress. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy is the latest example of that. There were those state senate holdouts in Indiana. It’s happened again and again. On that front, he feels like he’s on a roll. But it’s not just that either.

As some of you may have seen on Saturday, we’ve made some changes to our Weekender newsletter. We want to use it as a space to step back from the 24-7 news cycle to reflect on What It All Means and write about some of the entertaining, strange, surreal elements of our politics and political culture that we don’t always get to cover on-site. (It’s the weekend, after all!) We’ve also introduced some recurring segments, including No Words (an image that captures the spirit of the week), From TPM’s Group Chat (social media posts that made the staff chuckle or raise an eyebrow), Trivia Time (a little mini news quiz) and more.

I’ll be leading up the new Weekender alongside our Head of Product Derick Dermaier, and you’ll also still regularly hear from our other editors and reporters, including the indefatigable Nicole LaFond, who often anchored the Weekender in the past. She’ll also be helming Where Things Stand for you Monday through Thursdays.

Please give me a shout at allegra@talkingpointsmemo.com if there are things you love/hate about the look or content of the new Weekender. 

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