Hello, and welcome back to The Washington Mall. Thanks for all the great support and feedback. As a reminder, if you’ve somehow not yet subscribed to Puck, please do so here. You’ll finally get access to the inside conversation at the nexus of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and this old town.

Included in this issue: Rodney Davis, Donald Trump, Kari Lake, Ron DeSantis, Herschel Walker, J.D. Vance, Glenn Youngkin, Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, The Erics, Rand Paul, Peter Meijer, and many more…

He has the certification vote tally framed on his wall, but it may have proved to be the bullet of his political suicide in the modern G.O.P. Despite being redistricted into an even more entrenched MAGA constituency, he didn’t reach out to Mar-a-Lago for an endorsement. In the end, he was a sitting duck in a primary that pitted him against another incumbent, the Trump-endorsed Rep. Mary Miller, who referred to Roe’s overturning as a “historic victory for white life” during a rally appearance with Trump (her team insisted she meant “the right to life”) and quoted Hitler during a rally in Washington. In the primary, Miller won by 15 points.

Now that he’s exiting office, Davis was at liberty to voice some of the quieter, uncomfortable conversations taking place inside the Republican Party: issues that most elected officials would not go near, at least not ahead of their own elections. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Rep. Rodney Davis: Obviously, that’s something to consider since the turnout was that high in Kansas. That’s something that could clearly motivate voters, which means that we Republicans have to take the election cycle very, very seriously. The trends are in our favor, but we can’t allow certain issues to overcome our initial advantages right now and the incompetence of the Biden administration...