This week's Republican primaries are about to show who is really in control of the GOP

In Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington, there are two teams of Republicans: the first is one that is 100 percent on board with Donald Trump and supports his effort to overthrow the 2020 election. The second is supported by other Republican leaders, who support a kind of "light" version of the "big lie" Tuesday is about to be the showdown between the two.

The Washington Post wrote Monday that the two gubernatorial candidates in Arizona and Wisconsin endorsed by Trump are matched with those GOP candidates supported by former Vice President Mike Pence.

"Four members of Congress who voted to impeach Trump after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol are also trying to beat back challengers who embrace Trump’s false claims that he won," the Post cited. "And an Arizona lawmaker who led calls to 'decertify' the 2020 results and wants to ban the use of voting machines may win the GOP nomination Tuesday to oversee elections in a key battleground for 2024."

While Trump has been able to remake the Republican Party in his own image with the Senate candidates he recruited, it has actually put the GOP in a difficult spot of promoting unpopular Trumpism. Kari Lake, for example, has gone from being a friend to drag queens to going full QAnon conspiracy quickly.

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters explained Monday that even the Fox network understands that viewers are sick of hearing Trump whine about the 2020 election. But for Trump, the only thing that matters is the 2020 election, and that is the litmus test for any Republican running in a GOP primary. Where the GOP voters are, however, is the true test on Tuesday.

"I think what is going to be clarified here over the next few weeks, have the lunatics really taken over the asylum? … Are you going to see election truthers taking over the voting mechanisms up and down the ballot?" said Democratic consultant Jon Reinish. "That’s going to present the American people with a real choice to make that is going to be very stark."

Almost all Republican candidates follow the demand of being pro-gun, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ+, pro-conspiracy, no regulation and "build that wall" conservatives. The main point of contention remains, did Trump lose in 2020 or was the election somehow "rigged."

Some Republicans have tried to hedge when it comes to that question, former Republican Tim Miller has spoken about the kind of Trump-light Republicans who don't believe the "big lie" but say there were "irregularities" or think the election should be further investigated.

Last week, Miller wrote about Mike Pence, Doug Ducey, Rusty Bowers, and the other so-called "Good Republicans™." The group was out campaigning for their candidate Karrin Taylor Robson in an effort to defeat Kari Lake.

Karrin Taylor Robson isn't a believer in the "big lie," instead she supports "big lie-light," where she says she’s still not certain the 2020 election was “fair” to Trump.

So, while the political class debates the future of the GOP, Miller agrees that "team normal" and "team coup" aren't all that far apart after all.