Takeaways: Trump's big defeat; election denial backfiring

Former President Donald Trump’s crusade for vengeance suffered two devastating blows after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won their primaries Tuesday despite rejecting Trump’s entreaties to reverse his 2020 election loss.It’s a huge warning sign for the way Republican voters view the former president’s crusade to punish those who were not willing to overturn the will of the voters in 2020.Voters also demonstrated an openness to embracing scandal-plagued candidates — depending on the candidate, and the scandal.Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s primary elections in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota:TRUMP’S BIGGEST PRIMARY DEFEATTrump had hoped to turn Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp into an example of the danger in defying him. Trump endorsed primary challengers to the insurance commissioner and attorney general, and they, too, lost.It’s clear the former president’s harping on 2020 simply did not speak to Republican voters in Georgia, the country’s newest battleground state.“Georgia underscores one of Trump’s big problems if/when he runs again,” Brendan Buck, a former spokesperson for onetime House Speaker Paul Ryan, tweeted Tuesday. Bush, powered by his ability to use his office to cater to conservative causes by, for example, investigating the parents of transgender children.Back in Georgia, firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene won her Republican primary, shrugging off challengers who complained Greene was giving the party a bad name by engaging in Holocaust denial and other headline-grabbing, bombastic behavior.Trump set the model in 2016, and his followers are perfecting it — never let a scandal get in the way of winning an election.___A GAME OF INCHESThe marquee Democratic matchup of the night -- in Texas’ 28th Congressional District, between progressive Jessica Cisneros and centrist Rep. Henry Cuellar, one of the last abortion rights opponents in the Democratic caucus -- was too early to call Wednesday.The two candidates were separated by the thinnest margin of votes in a rematch two months after they were forced into a runoff.