The upshot: Mr. Trump’s obsession with the Georgia recount appears to be undermining his political position at every point. John Watson, a political consultant and onetime state Republican Party chairman, related the point to me in a nice metaphor. “Georgia is a political crack pipe that Trump can’t put down, and like all addictions, it’s hurting him badly.”

Mr. Kemp has avoided direct responses to Mr. Trump’s attacks. “He’s mad at me,” the governor said shortly before the election. “I’m not mad at him.” When I asked if his primary victory suggested that the former president’s influence in the party has waned, I hoped he would say something interesting but suspected he wouldn’t. My instinct was correct: “I’m not focused on Trump . . .”

“I was afraid you would say that,” I responded, drawing a laugh from his wife, Marty, who saw what I was up to.

But the governor’s approach is wise. The chief lesson of the Georgia primaries is that it does Republican candidates no good to talk about Mr. Trump. When he lived in the White House, they felt they needed to identify themselves in relation to the president: You were either a Trumpist or a Never Trumper. That inclination began to abate the moment Mr. Trump left office. The former president still has the power to elevate candidates running in multicandidate primaries for open seats, but Georgia’s primaries suggest he has no ability to damage incumbents who ignore him.