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Ever since Donald Trump became president, wary Republican elites have believed he was an anomalya unique candidate who owed his success to celebrity appeal and weak opposition, despite some noxious views and behavior. Take away Trump the person, they believed, and there would be no Trump phenomenon.

That viewpoint got a rude wake-up call this week, in a Virginia Republican primary that wasnt supposed to be a contest at all. And while the GOP establishments preferred candidate still won, the surprise result showed theres still a substantial appetite in the partys base for the populist impulses Trump represents.

Virginia elects governors in the odd-numbered years after presidential elections, and this year, it was Democrats whose primary looked like a pitched battle. Two well-credentialed progressivesone the sitting lieutenant governor, the other a former congressman and Obama administration officialwere locked in a battle for the partys soul. But despite polling showing a tight race, the Democratic establishment candidate, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, pulled out an easy win, defeating Tom Perriello by a 12-point margin.

On the Republican side, meanwhile, Ed Gillespie expected to coast to an easy victory over his main challenger, Corey Stewart, a Trump acolyte who highlighted his hard line on immigration and support for Confederate monuments. It doesnt get much more establishment than Gillespie, a former D.C. lobbyist and chairman of the Republican National Committee. Polls had shown Gillespie up by 20 points over Stewart, a local county board chairman. Gillespie had all the major endorsements and many times as much money as Stewart.

But off-year elections, where turnout varies wildly and partisans are often late to decide, are devilishly difficult to poll. Virginia primaries have defied the pollsters before: In 2014, grassroots conservatives delivered a shocking defeat to Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, just weeks after Cantors pollster had told him he was winning by 34 points.

In this case, Gillespie and Stewarts vote totals hovered within a point of each other for hours after the polls closed. Gillespie was finally declared the winner by just over 1 percentage point, drawing 43.7 percent of the vote to Stewarts 42.5 percent.

I spent the weekend before Tuesdays vote following Stewart and Gillespie, on the theory that their primary was an early test of the Trump eras most pressing political question: whether the unorthodox new president represents a long-term political realignment or just a weird one-off. Had Gillespie walked away with the primary as expected, it might have been evidence that the Republican fever had broken, and that the GOP was looking to return to business as usual with sensible, practical candidates rather than race-baiting firebrands.

Virginia isnt exactly Trump country: The state went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Trump won the states primary by a narrow margin over Marco Rubio. Despite its Southern geography, Virginia today is an urban, transient, diverse, highly educated state, where many local Republican activists are wealthy consultants and lobbyists like Gillespie. When I went to see Gillespie campaign at a local fair, I met one such activist, a former mining-industry lobbyist who lives in the D.C. suburbs. Gillespies campaign was premised on the notion that Virginia Republicans were looking for a candidate who, while not openly repudiating Trump, was the polar opposite of Trump in temperament and orientation, emphasizing tax cuts and economic growth over culture-war controversies.

Stewarts theory was the opposite: that Trump changed everything and showed what the GOP base was really looking for. Serving as the Trump campaigns Virginia state chairman last October, he led activists in a march on the RNC headquarters, where he charged that the establishment pukes were undermining Trumps campaign. (He was fired for the stunt.) Last weekend, Stewart told me he had warmed to Reince Priebus, the former RNC chairman now serving as White House chief of staff, but still believed the Republican establishment was hampering Trumps presidency.

The Stewart supporters I spoke to, at a campaign rally in a diner in Fredericksburg, were galvanized by his nationalist message. There were numerous Confederate flag bumper stickers in the parking lot, and one woman wore a stars-and-bars hat with the word REBEL. They told me they were disgusted with Republican leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan, and put all their faith in Trump.

On Tuesday, there turned out to be a lot more of these types of Republican voters than Ed Gillespie expected.

Trump had an effect on the Democratic side of Tuesdays primary as well. More than they competed on policy, the Democrats vied to be the most virulently anti-Trump, with the winner, Northam, airing an ad in which he called the president a narcissistic maniac. And Democrats were clearly energized: More than 540,000 turned out to vote in the Democratic primary, compared to 370,000 in the Republican primary.

In Fredericksburg, I asked Stewart if he believed Trump had changed the face of American politics. Thats what this election is going to help answer, Stewart replied. He certainly was a different kind of Republican. The question is, did that start a new era in Republican politics? Or are we going to revert back to the same old same old, with more establishment candidates winning nominations?

Stewart, of course, believed he was going to win, and he didnt. But in coming as close as he did, he gave the Republican establishment a scareand showed that a sizable portion of the GOP base doesnt want to go back to business as usual. Far from being weary of the controversial and unorthodox president, a lot of Republicans want more candidates like Trump.

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Virginia's Wake-Up Call to the GOP Establishment - The Atlantic

New York Times

Alexandria Gunman Carried List With Names of 3 Republican Lawmakers New York Times WASHINGTON The gunman who targeted Republican congressmen this week at a baseball field in suburban Washington was carrying a list with the names of at least three lawmakers, and had pictures of the ballpark stored on his cellphone, two law ... Scalise shooter James Hodgkinson had list of Republican lawmakers' namesFox News List of Republican congressmen found with baseball practice shooterCNN Congressional Baseball Shooter Hated Republicans, Has Died of InjuriesSlate Magazine (blog) USA TODAY -Twitchy -POLITICO Magazine -Washington Post all 1,573 news articles »

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Alexandria Gunman Carried List With Names of 3 Republican Lawmakers - New York Times

New York Times

The Shooting Attack on Republican Lawmakers New York Times On Wednesday morning there was a shooting at a baseball field filled with Republican members of Congress practicing for a charity game. Only the diligence of their police protectors prevented a mass killing. The gunman has been identified as a ... Dems Win Congressional Baseball Game, Give Trophy to Republican Steve ScaliseBreitbart News Democrats Down Republicans, Both Down the RhetoricRoll Call Somber Republicans miss Scalise in first post-shooting meetingCNN International ESPN -New York Magazine -The Atlantic all 5,575 news articles »

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The Shooting Attack on Republican Lawmakers - New York Times

Now that the U.S. House Of Representatives, a swirling vortex of lobbyists and guys who did thousands of chest bumps in their college fraternities, has passed the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and then celebrated by cackling at the thought of watching millions lose their coverage and die for the sake of a slight reduction in taxes (though not while chugging Bud Light, let us remember), its time for the Senate to take action. This more elite and august body was constructed by the founding fathers to act as a check upon the passions of the more impulsive body of legislators in the lower house, a means whereby, We pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it, George Washington is reputed to have said. Certainly, pouring it out of the boiling cauldron of enfant terribles who crafted a health care bill so shitty, those same sponsors made sure to exempt themselves from its regulations, is probably a wise idea.

Naturally, given the tempestuous nature of this debate, its important to have the wise and sage elected officials of the Senate put their heads together and come up with a superior version of the bill. Because when a president so mean he publicly mocks the handicapped says your bill is mean, mean, mean, its smart to revisit some of its components. So these esteemed congresspeople have been drafting their own version, reportedly just taking the house version and messing around with it in hopes of coming up with something that makes them look less like assholes. And given there is literally not a single state that favors the bill, there must surely be some changes and improvements made on this bill that is supposedly being voted on very soon, right?

According to a series of interviews conducted by Vox, not so much. The site spoke with eight Republican senators, all of whom happily went on the record to give a series of answers to simple, elementary-level questions about whats in their version of the billor even just what they hope is in their version of the bill, basic things they might want it to includeand every single one tap-danced like it was the climax of On The Town.

It just goes on like that. In the face of cruel and life-ending Machiavellian ideas to strip Americans of the meager protections they possess, to treat being a woman as a pre-existing condition, and to transfer the burden of paying for all of it onto the backs of the poorest and most needy in the country, the alternative is literally people who have no ideas at all.

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Oh good, Republican senators have no idea what's up with their own healthcare bill - A.V. Club

Senate Republicans are facing increasing criticism for ducking public scrutiny as they craft legislation to roll back the Affordable Care Act with little input from outside experts, patients, physicians and others most affected by healthcare legislation.

The GOPs secretive process marks a sharp departure from the traditional way the Senate has developed large, complex bills, which are often debated for years with multiple committee hearings to ensure broad input and careful analysis.

The closed-door approach, which is even more opaque than the process used earlier this year in the House, is all the more remarkable given the bills likely impact on tens of millions of Americans, many of whom could see their health insurance protections substantially scaled back or eliminated altogether.

It is deeply disturbing, said Erika Sward, assistant vice president of the American Lung Assn. Patients groups like ours need to make sure that our patients needs for healthcare will be met. We cant do that if we cant see what is being proposed.

The lung association is among 120 patient groups that this week sent a letter to senior Republican senators expressing deep concerns about GOP proposals to fundamentally restructure Medicaid, which provides health coverage to more than 70 million poor Americans.

Although Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has indicated he wants to vote on a bill in the next two weeks, Senate Republicans thus far havent disclosed details of their Medicaid plans, or any other part of their healthcare legislation.

Obamacare vs. Trumpcare: A side-by-side comparison of the Affordable Care Act and the GOPs replacement plan

The Obamacare repeal bill passed by the House in May, which has helped guide the Senate discussions, would slash federal healthcare assistance to low- and moderate-income Americans by nearly $1 trillion and increase the number of uninsured by 23 million over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol this week, McConnell who had previously vowed a much more open legislative process for the healthcare bill denied there was any effort to conceal the Senate legislation.

We'll let you see the bill when we finally release it, he said. Nobody's hiding the ball here. You're free to ask anybody anything.

But even some GOP senators have voiced increasing frustration about the lack of public debate about the specifics of how Republicans plan to replace Obamacare, as the healthcare law is frequently called.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) lamented in an interview with online news site Vox this week that she couldnt even answer basic questions about the bill.

None of us have actually seen language, she said. My constituents expect me to know, and if we had utilized the process that goes through a committee, I would be able to answer my constituents' questions.

It remains unclear if any GOP lawmakers will try to hold up the healthcare legislation, however, as no Republican senator has yet demanded publicly that McConnell slow down or hold hearings on the legislation.

Before voting, the Senate, unlike the House, will have to wait for an independent analysis from the CBO.

The lack of public debate appears to be a deliberate strategy by McConnell and his lieutenants to minimize opportunities for critical evaluation of their bill, which is likely to be highly controversial.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said holding public hearings about the legislation would only give Democrats more opportunity to attack the bill.

We have zero cooperation from the Democrats, he said. So getting it in public gives them a chance to get up and scream.

But interest in the GOP healthcare legislation extends far beyond Democratic politicians on Capitol Hill.

Alex Brandon / Associated Press

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

Major physician groups, hospitals, consumer advocates and organizations representing millions of patients with cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other serious illnesses have been pleading with Republican leaders for months to open up the process and listen to their concerns.

This week, a group of more than 15 patients groups including the American Heart Assn., the March of Dimes, the American Lung Assn. and the American Diabetes Assn. asked McConnells office to meet with them next week, proposing any time between Friday and June 22.

A representative from McConnells office told them staff schedules were too busy, according to representatives of several of the organizations.

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said the majority leaders schedule is full. Numerous meetings are already booked well in advance, he said.

Dick Woodruff, vice president of the American Cancer Societys advocacy arm, said even when he and others have sat down with Republican congressional aides, it is often fruitless.

The Senate staff generally dont know anything, Woodruff said. There are so few people who understand what is going on that having meetings isnt particularly productive. This is such a closed process.

Another representative of a leading patient group compared the experience to talking to a wall.

The concerns about the healthcare legislation extend to the broader public as well, polls suggest.

The House bill is extremely unpopular, with voters disapproving of the legislation by nearly 4 to 1.

Just 17% of registered voters backed the House bill in a recent nationwide poll, compared with 62% who disapprove of the legislation. This week, Trump reportedly called that legislation, which he celebrated six weeks ago in a Rose Garden ceremony, mean.

Rutgers University professor Ross Baker, who has spent decades studying Congress, said lawmakers have traditionally used committee hearings and public debate over legislation to help educate voters and build support for complex and controversial legislation such as the civil rights bills of the 1960s.

That is what makes the current GOP effort so remarkable, he said. I cant think of another piece of legislation of this scope and magnitude that affects so many people that has been drawn up behind such a dense veil of secrecy.

Obamacare 101: A primer on key issues in the debate over repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.

Don Ritchie, historian emeritus of the Senate, said not since the years before World War I has the Senate taken such a partisan, closed-door approach to major legislation.

A century ago, Senate Democrats, at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, drew up major tariff reforms while shutting out Republicans. But when Democratic leaders tried that again when they had large majorities during the Great Depression, rank-and-file senators revolted. It hasnt happened since, he said.

Even the deeply partisan debate over the development of the Affordable Care Act, which ended with Democrats alone voting for the bill, had Republicans at the table for much of the process.

That included 53 hearings and meetings about healthcare in the Senate finance committee, according to a tally assembled by the committee.

The committee a group of Democratic and Republican senators who spent months in 2009 trying unsuccessfully to develop a bipartisan compromise then spent seven days marking up final legislation, the longest mark-up of a bill in more than two decades.

In the end, the Senate devoted nearly 15 months developing the Affordable Care Act before it was finally enacted in March 2010.

noam.levey@latimes.com

@noamlevey

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

@LisaMascaro

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UPDATES:

1:25 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

This article was originally published at 10:20 a.m.

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Republican secrecy faces mounting criticism as GOP senators work behind closed doors to repeal Obamacare - Los Angeles Times