In state after state after state, Republican-backed challengers continue to win their primaries. This is good for Donald Trump. It is potentially not so good for the Republican party because in state after state after state where Trump-backed Republicans win, the Democrats have the edge in polling.

Caveat: Polls don’t mean sh*t.

In Wisconsin, the Trump-backed candidate, Tim Michels, defeated the Pence-backed candidate, Rebecca Kleefisch, to become the Republican candidate for Governor. He will face incumbent Tony Evers in a swing state. Michels, who vows to make abortion illegal in Wisconsin, is behind Evers by 7 points in early polls. Kleefisch was down by only four points. Meanwhile, one of the more vulnerable Republican Senators, Ron Johnson, will face Mandela Barnes, who holds a two-point lead over Johnson although he also has much higher favorable ratings (Johnson is very unpopular in the state).

Basically, Wisconsin is another state where the Trump-backed candidates are expected to fare more poorly than the other Republican candidate in the general election. This is good for Democrats, and if Democrats soundly defeat Trump-backed challengers in the midterms, the Republicans might finally pull the plug on Trump once and for all. But, if Democratic voters decide not to show up to vote, and these Trump-backed challengers defy the polls — as Trump did in 2016 — not only will Trump maintain his grip on the party but the Trump-backed winners will endanger democracy in America. So, vote your f**kign faces off because if the Republicans do take back the House, expect Joe Biden to be impeached over some trumped-up bullsh*t involving his son, Hunter.

Meanwhile, less than three months ahead of the midterms, things are starting to shift a little back into Joe Biden and the Democrats’ favor. Not only did Biden pass that huge climate change bill (that also extends Obamacare subsidies), but gas prices are falling (they are below $4 on average nationwide) and inflation is slowing. Consumer prices rose 0 percent in July.

It’s more unclear what the political ramifications of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago will mean for November. It’s clearly pumped up the Trump base, who are threatening civil war on Twitter, which — again — is not real life. Increasingly, however, and despite efforts to encourage newsrooms to stay off Twitter, the political discourse on Twitter is what is generating many of the political headlines. Please, go ask your Republican neighbor if he or she has plans to take up arms against your family. I’m not saying those people do not exist — they definitely do — but they still exist in the fringes. Like, a dozen people showed up outside of Mar-a-Lago to protest during the FBI search — a dozen — but the media treated it like a BFD. I am exhausted with seeing someone on Twitter float some half-baked theory and then watch the media speculate on it. You want to do that in the entertainment world? Fine. But stop letting the equivalent of DCEU stans control the political news cycle.

Finally, Trump will be testifying under oath in the New York Attorney General’s civil suit against his business practices today. It’s already been established that civil tax fraud has been committed — Letitia James is now trying to determine who was responsible: Trump or his kids. I wonder who will throw whom under the bus? If Trump biffs it, it could also renew criminal proceedings against him.

Update: He invoked the 5th.

NEW: Former president Trump says he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during his deposition with ⁦@NewYorkStateAG⁩’s office pic.twitter.com/NQ0gUyCc4U

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) August 10, 2022

Reminder:

TRUMP in September 2016: "The mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?" pic.twitter.com/xuta4kGVuz

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 25, 2018