Tuesday’s round of primaries in Arizona, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas and Washington was closely watched by both parties for signs of what the midterms in November might look like, and one result is sure — neither Ron Watkins, the former 8kun administrator who is thought to have posted as Q at one point, nor Mark McCloskey, known from the Ken and Karen St. Louis, Missouri Gun Couple meme, will be elected to Congress come November.

Ron Watkins looking at the primary results in the morning pic.twitter.com/cainRs1K6X

— TV’s Frank (@NoNameGiven812) August 3, 2022

Mark McCloskey, who pointed a firearm at Black Lives Matter demonstrators and subsequently rose to become a MAGAworld icon, is having a horrible night in the Missouri Republican Senate primary, polling at around 3% of the vote.

— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) August 3, 2022

Watkins in Arizona and McCloskey in Missouri both came in at around 3 percent of the vote, finishing last in their respective primaries. Critics of both men had a field day during the aftermath of their considerable losses, sharing mocking memes and other reactions.

Watkins, who reportedly never campaigned in person due to living in Japan, has been theorized alongside his son Jim to be the mysterious "Q" by the original founder of 8kun (née chan) and by a documentary film in which he inadvertently confessed to being Q at one point. Many speculate that Watkins did not start QAnon but took over the burgeoning conspiracy theory cult once it became clear that it was driving most of the traffic to 8kun.

In another victory for the shadowy international cabal of election-rigging communist child eaters, Ron Watkins of QAnon's 8kun came in last place of seven candidates in the Arizona 2nd Congressional District Republican primary, with 3% of the vote pic.twitter.com/U2miQhsofR

— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) August 3, 2022

I'm watching Ron Watkins' election night party and it captures his campaign pretty well. It isn't at a bar, it's on a livestream with a couple friends/campaign people. “I just hope I’m not in last place. That would be terrible,” he says, before adding, "I ideally, I win, ideally" pic.twitter.com/oRUBNujXo1

— Stuart A. Thompson (@stuartathompson) August 3, 2022

Watkins got his start in mainstream politics in 2020, claiming to provide evidence of election fraud that didn’t materialize. He ran for the House on an election denial platform in Arizona.

So far Ron Watkins has more heart emojis than votes. pic.twitter.com/M1mzQQOWVw

— serisu (@serisu_m) August 3, 2022

McCloskey vaulted to national attention after striding out onto his lawn with a pink polo shirt and AR-15 during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 where he claimed to be defending his property. McCloskey and his wife promptly became fodder for memes, with many mocking him as the perfect stereotype of a Boomer.

Ken and Karen fashion for the apocalypse🦙
🔫St. Louis👕AR-15 💥 pic.twitter.com/MXE1wEr5Sa

— 𝓥𝓪𝓵𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓮 🐬 (@swampgyrl) June 29, 2020

McCloskey even used the infamous image of him and his wife as the cover photo for his Senate campaign website. He also denies Joe Biden is the legitimate president, but the section on his website for “Election Integrity” just has a title on it and nothing else, unlike the other issue sections.

A dilemma faced by Republicans running in primaries in all five states was how much to embrace former President Trump's unfounded claims about voter fraud during the last election, as many feared being too into election denial could scare away voters — but the GOP is also still largely Trump’s party.

Eric Schmitt ended up winning the Senate race McCloskey ran in, beating out his main rival Eric Greitens. This came after Donald Trump, torn over which of the leading candidates to endorse, chose to endorse both by posting his support for “ERIC” (all caps in the original).

Trump endorsing "Eric" when there are two Erics in the race, and them both claiming the endorsement, is 1000% a Veep plot line

— Sam Mintz (@samjmintz) August 1, 2022

In Kansas, pro-choice advocates won an unexpectedly resounding victory, defeating a constitutional amendment that would have made abortion illegal by 17 percentage points — in a state that Trump won in 2020 by 15 percentage points. The result of that vote has some Democrats – including Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii – convinced that abortion restrictions and cultural issues (rather than kitchen-table issues) should be at the center of the party’s pitch to voters in the midterms.

It is time to reevaluate the conventional wisdom about the midterms after this vote in Kansas. People are mad as hell at having their rights taken away.

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) August 3, 2022

Wow. Kansas. Might be time to reshuffle the conventional wisdom deck for the midterms.

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) August 3, 2022