I spoke to Morning Consult‘s Eli Yokley about the Lincoln Project and its decision to take on Leader McConnell.

“Their most obvious success has been leveraging the appetite for this sort of content — and a political press thirsty for this particular narrative — into earned media on the cheap,” said Liam Donovan, a former finance strategist at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, in reference to the Lincoln Project’s broader efforts. He said the group’s messaging could be marginally helpful in discouraging ticket-splitting among Trump skeptics but said “polarization has done the vast majority of that work for them.”

Polling suggests that when it comes to media attention, the Lincoln Project is preaching to the choir. The May 22-26 poll found Democratic voters were more likely than Republicans to say they’d seen, read or heard about the super PAC, 30 percent to 19 percent, and those who backed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 were more likely than Trump voters to say the same. Overall, 8 percent of voters had heard “a lot” about the group, and another 15 percent had heard “something” about it.

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to Colin Wilhelm of Bloomberg Tax about the next phase of the Congressional Covid response.

“Republicans know CARES was not the end of the congressional response, but they clearly don’t feel the same urgency as their blue state counterparts,” said Liam Donovan, a principal at Bracewell LLP in Washington. “You might think of this ongoing pause as walking away from the legislative bazaar—blithely dismissing what they deem a liberal wish list, winding down the clock, and lowering the price on the inevitable next phase.”

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to Jonathan Martin of the New York Times about GOP challenges in the Georgia Senate special election.

Some Republicans believe that the easiest way for Ms. Loeffler to turn around her campaign would be for Mr. Trump to support her.

“Most of this could be absolved or at least elided if President Trump was on board,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist.

But Mr. Donovan acknowledged that Ms. Loeffler was in something of a vise.

“The entire logic of picking Kelly was predicated on ‘we’re losing the suburbs, so you pick a Buckhead mom to win back Buckhead moms,’” he said, alluding to the tony Atlanta enclave. “But that’s only tenable if you don’t have to squander your potential outflanking Doug Collins for Fox News dads.”

Read the full piece here.