A onetime establishment stalwart, Ed Gillespie, declined to campaign with Trump — but he executed the plan as well as he could. He defended Confederate memorials, vilified Central American gangs in ads that looked like horror movies and even denounced the kneeling protests of professional football players…

“This is just an old-fashioned thumping,” former Virginia GOP congressman Tom Davis said as the results came in. Urban voters, he said, came out in droves to send the Republican Party a message. “They have taken all of these guys out,” Davis said of the state’s denser districts. “The party is going to have to get right on immigration if they want to win in these areas.”…

“Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for,” Trump wrote, before referencing recent special elections in Republican-leaning districts. “Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!”