Jamie Dupree had a column quoting me in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution looking at the May primary gauntlet as a barometer for Trump’s political strength.

The first test is on Tuesday, May 3 in Ohio, where Trump has endorsed J.D. Vance for U.S. Senate, scrambling the GOP race. A few weeks ago, Vance was going nowhere. Now, he might win the primary.

“All things equal, he still matters,” GOP strategist Liam Donovan said of Trump. “A lot.”

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to POLITICO‘s Kate Davidson about the surprisingly ugly Q1 GDP number and what it means politically for the Biden administration.

The senior Biden administration official pointed to a thread Wednesday from Jason Furman, former chair of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, explaining why technical factors in the first quarter masked the economy’s underlying strength.

But one analyst said that kind of messaging from the White House wouldn’t work.

“Any time you’re relying on a 12-tweet thread from Jason Furman to explain why actually the economy is better than it looks — particularly when GDP is already an abstract thing that people are not necessarily intuitively feeling, unlike inflation — I think it makes the story they’re trying to tell now even tougher,” said Liam Donovan, a principal at Bracewell LLP and a former GOP operative. “There’s only so many indicators left that can provide good news. The last thing they need is further bad news.”

Read the full piece here.

The Washington Post‘s Aaron Blake used my line from a recent NYT piece on OHSEN in his preview of the May primary gauntlet.

The 2022 election cycle is different, though. In seeking to assert his authority over his party and guide its course while out of office, Trump has endorsed several underdogs, and in a number of tight contests — including Senate candidate J.D. Vance in Ohio and Senate candidate Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. As GOP strategist Liam Donovan said after the Vance endorsement, “This is the first time Trump’s political might has been tested on a level playing field among broadly acceptable candidates.”

Read the full piece here.