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It’s not officially called yet. But I’ve been watching the returns closely and it appears that the anti-choice referendum in Kansas is going down to a decisive defeat. Anti-abortion forces in the state planned this referendum to fall on what should have been a low turnout primary election day, an electorate that would strongly favor their side. Then Dobbs happened. There was big turnout. And now it appears the amendment is going down to defeat. This should be and will be the story of the night. Anti-abortion politics suffered a big defeat in a very red state. This is a test case for the power of Roe and Reform nationwide.

As you know, tonight is another primary night. A number of key Senate contests will be decided. One big one is in Arizona, where Sen. Mark Kelly will get his challenger. Probably Blake Masters, a pro-authoritarian, anti-semitism-curious candidate endorsed by Trump and Peter Thiel. Another is Missouri where we’ll find out if Eric Greitens gets the chance to enter the Senate. We’ll also see whether a handful of impeachment-voting Republicans will survive primary challenges. If you’re interesting in the deep, deep dives on key local races around the country, my go-to guy is Daniel Nichanian who publishes these lists. Perhaps the most interesting contest is a referendum in Kansas where voters will get the chance to vote on whether to outlaw abortion in the state.

TPM Reader SB checks in from Georgia …

In Georgia, we’re not seeing much “Roe and Reform” talk from Sen. Warnock (he supports that path, it’s just not an integral part of his stump speeches). We are, however, seeing a big push from the Democratic AG candidate Jen Jordan that she’ll challenge the constitutionality of Georgia’s newly enacted heartbeat bill (SB 481) if she’s elected. Here’s a clip of her talking about that. Her line “If Alito wants to bring it back to the states, I say bring it” is resonating with Georgia Democrats.

Months after my father died unexpectedly in 2006 I had most of his belongings shipped to me in New York where I had them delivered to a storage unit several blocks from my home. Most of my father’s possessions, at least the ones that mattered most to me, were his archive of tens of thousands of photographs and his collection of cameras, the ones he used — SLRs, TLRs and various large format cameras — as well as a large collection of antique cameras. I went to check on everything shortly after it was delivered. There it was, in standard moving boxes, packed into a 5 by 10 foot space. I took a few albums of photos and left the rest there for 15 years.

Until last week.

The modern GOP’s sheer level of political cynicism is simply remarkable. I noted this morning that in retaliation for Dems outwitting Mitch McConnell with their climate bill, House Republicans voted against the semiconductors bill most of them actually support. In the event, 24 House Republicans bucked their leadership and voted for the bill. All Democrats voted for the bill save for one who voted “present.” Now we hear from Susan Collins that Dems’ legislative coup now likely means Republicans won’t allow a vote on the bill to protect same sex marriage rights. “I just think the timing could not have been worse and it came totally out of the blue,” Collins HuffPost, explaining that it will now be much harder for her and other GOP moderates to secure GOP votes.

New congressional generic ballot poll: Suffolk, D-44%, R-40%. Meanwhile, the 538 average of these polls is now R+.02.

New Georgia Senate poll out this morning from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Warnock 46%, Walker 43%. This is in line with other recent polls which show a modest but consistent Warnock lead. Meanwhile, three new congressional generic polls have come out over the last 24 hours, two of which give the Democrats a six point advantage and one of which gives a 4 point margin. One of those 6 point margins is actually a Republican Party poll. Why they chose to release it I’m really not sure.

Various other midterm metrics continue to move slowly but perceptibly in Democrats’ direction. As we’ve discussed at various points over the last few weeks, the House especially is still very much an uphill battle for Democrats. But this trend makes me think Democrats holding the House in November is definitely possible and getting more likely. Not remotely a lost cause.

TPM Reader PT notes — and rightly so — that it’s actually remarkable that there are only four Democratic senators expressing any real level of resistance to changing the filibuster rules. That’s a massive sea change from as little as four or five years ago. As I’ve noted, I fully expect Warner and King to give way in short order if their constituents press them. Its really just the two odd men (people) out: Manchin and Sinema. Today and going forward it is impossible for a Democratic candidate to be elected to the Senate anywhere in the United States while supporting the filibuster. It’s anathema among Democrats. But in this post I wanted to step back from the immediate necessity and partisan advantages of ditching or scaling back the filibuster to note how important it is for the future of civic democracy in the United States for the filibuster to be abolished.

Filibuster defenders now usually argue some future advantage. Senator King says that what seems like an obstacle today will be needed as a shield in the future. Filibuster opponents correctly respond that it is folly to believe that the current Republican Party would hesitate for a moment to ditch the filibuster if it represented any meaningful obstacle to getting anything they wanted. They took the wildly unprecedented step of refusing to entertain a Supreme Court nomination for an entire year to steal the seat left vacant by Antonin Scalia. They ditched the filibuster for Supreme Court appointments as soon as they had the chance to pack the Court under Trump. Everything we know about the current GOP tells us it’s folly to believe they’d hesitate.

On Saturday, in a post about the current state of and future of Trumpism, I said that a key reason for the slow deterioration of Trump’s 2024 support is his relentlessly backward-looking and self-centered focus. In other words, it’s the Big Lie and the ways in which the Big Lie has incorporated the Mueller probe, his impeachments and all of his other first term wounds and grievances. TPM Reader TS wrote in to say that while he agreed with my argument he wondered whether Jon Chait’s related piece modified or changed my view of this. Chait argued that the conventional wisdom, which holds that Trump needs to give up his fixation on the 2020 election, is plainly wrong. Not only does he not need to drop the Big Lie — in fact, it’s his best strategy for getting the 2024 nomination.

So who’s right?

I got this fascinating report from TPM Reader EK about the situation in Arizona’s 2nd district …

I wanted to share a closer look at one House race to get some insight into where Nate may be off.

FiveThirtyEight shows Walt Blackman with an 84% chance of winning over incumbent Tom O’Halleran in Arizona’s new 2nd Congressional District.

First, the Republican primary is in disarray. Blackman has proposed murder charges for women who get abortions. Trump came to Arizona to endorse Ed Crane, who has very few ties to Arizona. Trump was actually booed by the audience because they want Ron Watkins, who had a key role in forming Q Anon.

Attached is a flyer Crane supporters mailed to Republicans attacking Blackman for the Aug. 2 primary.