“The darker forces that propelled President Trump’s rise are beginning to frame and define the rest of the Republican Party,” the Washington Post reports. “When GOP House candidate Greg Gianforte assaulted a reporter who had attempted to ask him a question in Montana, many saw not an isolated outburst by an individual, but the obvious, violent result of Trump’s charge that journalists are ‘the enemy of the people.’ Nonetheless, Gianforte won Thursday’s special election to fill a safe Republican seat.” “Trump — and specifically, his character and his conduct — now thoroughly dominate the national political conversation… The dynamic is shaping the contours of this year’s smattering of special congressional elections and contests for governor, as well as the jockeying ahead the 2018 midterm elections.”