The biggest takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries, runoffs and special primaries: incumbency (and campaigns) matter; the ‘establishment’ isn’t dead, and voters made clear distinctions between state and federal contests.

The top line story from Tuesday’s primaries is the repudiation of Trump-endorsed state-level candidates in Georgia. As my colleague Jessica Taylor writes, GOP Gov. Brian Kemp shellacked Trump’s pick, former Sen. David Perdue, by more than 50 points in their primary. Perdue ran a lackluster race, to be sure, and had little message outside of “the 2020 election was stolen,” but the rejection of Trump’s endorsed candidates against incumbents — including in other downballot races like Attorney General and Secretary of State — shows Georgia voters won’t be solely swayed by the former president’s opinions.

Kemp may still be the most vulnerable Republican incumbent governor, but his decisive win shows he’s more than prepared to take on Democrat Stacey Abrams again, who will be running in a far worse national environment than she had four years ago and still fell short. It’s also worth watching to see if Trump, who

More from the Cook Political Report