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.

I spoke to Alan Fram of the Associated Press about nascent House infrastructure efforts in the context of the Congressional Covid response.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump wants to spend $2 trillion on infrastructure projects to create jobs and help the collapsing economy rebuild from stunning blows of the coronavirus pandemic. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that seems about right.

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Yet even with both sides agreeing that infrastructure can be a reliable way of creating jobs and modernizing systems that themselves add muscle to the economy, it’s unclear they can reach an election-year compromise.

“A lot of this is theater, staking out the high ground for the fight that’s coming,’’ said Liam Donovan, a lobbyist who’s specialized in infrastructure work.

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to Dino Grandoni of the Washington Post about Congress’ decision to scrap SPR funding in the CARES Act and what they might do to provide the energy sector relief in future phases.

But the push to buy oil to replenish the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve could come up again as Congress is expected to take up another stimulus package next month in response to the deadly pandemic.

“That’s when you can slow down the legislative process and not throw together a trillion-dollar bill in a week,” said Liam Donovan, an energy lobbyist at the Washington-based firm Bracewell.

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After the bill became law without the oil money, the Energy Department scrapped plans to buy 77 million barrels to reload the emergency oil stockpile — a move the Trump administration had said was prudent since the price of West Texas Intermediate has dropped by 65 percent since the start of the year.

Though that amount of oil is small for a nation that consumes about 20 million barrels of petroleum per day, the federal government’s purchase would have been a “signal to the industry” that more help was on the way, Donovan said. It could have also been a way for the federal government to make money, by buying oil while prices are low and selling it when they are high again.

Read the full piece here.