“President Trump’s unexpected endorsement of Brian Kemp this week in the Georgia governor’s race blindsided and alarmed Republican governors, who fear that Mr. Trump’s penchant for capriciously intervening in party primaries is imperiling their prospects in a series of statehouse races,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump’s personal unpopularity with the general electorate has already created a difficult political environment for Republicans running for governor in many states. But with a handful of hotly contested primaries in the coming weeks, governors and their aides are scrambling to dissuade the president from taking more active steps to insert himself into the midterm campaign, lobbying the White House to stay out of Republican races in Kansas and Tennessee.”

“On the eve of one of the newsiest days of the 2016 presidential election season, a group of Russian operatives fired off tweets at a furious pace, about a dozen each minute. By the time they finished, more than 18,000 had been sent through cyberspace toward unwitting American voters, making it the busiest day by far in a disinformation operation whose aftermath is still roiling U.S. politics,” the Washington Post reports.

“The reason for this burst of activity on Oct. 6, 2016, documented in a new trove of 3 million Russian tweets collected by Clemson University researchers, is a mystery that has generated intriguing theories but no definitive explanation.”

“On Oct.7, 2016, Wikileaks began releasing embarrassing emails that Russian intelligence operatives had stolen from the campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton. The Clemson researchers and others familiar with their findings think there likely is a connection between this looming release and the torrent of tweets.”

“The Republican National Committee announced Friday that it will hold its 2020 convention in Charlotte, making official a decision that had long been expected by party insiders,” the Washington Post reports.

“President Trump clinched North Carolina by more than three percentage points in 2016. But Charlotte itself sits in firmly Democratic territory.”