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.

I spoke to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times about the upcoming Ohio primary as a test of Trump’s political standing. As I told Maggie, for all the talk of his diminished clout in races like GAGOV and ALSEN, Ohio and North Carolina stand to be a better barometer of his enduring pull.

Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist and former top aide at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said that while Mr. Trump’s approach with his endorsements has been fairly random in recent months, the Vance endorsement is different because of the composition of the primary. “This is the first time Trump’s political might has been tested on a level playing field among broadly acceptable candidates,” Mr. Donovan said.

In both Ohio and North Carolina, Mr. Donovan said, “the Trump nod may lift his picks from the middle of the pack to victory over established favorites with lengthy statewide resumes. That would be an objectively impressive display of power.”

Read the full piece here.

News’ of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter harkened back to a conversation I had with Bloomberg‘s Joshua Green last year, positing a theoretical scenario where a Trump return to the platform lent unforeseen tailwinds to Democrats.

Blake Houndshell of the New York Times‘ On Politics newsletter took note, and asked me what a return could mean for the midterms.

“Dems would be delighted to have him back, if only to change the subject from inflation and ineffectuality,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist in Washington.

“Republicans who are paid to win elections would have considerable heartburn,” he added.

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to CNN‘s Mike Warren about the struggles of Trump’s primary picks and what it means and doesn’t mean for his power within the party.

“What it tells me isn’t that Trump has lost his touch, but that he made some objectively questionable picks that didn’t pay off,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist. “In some cases he made picks on a lark, in some he made them because he had a personal ax to grind. There are still a number of messy primaries where his input could make a big difference.”

Trump’s imprimatur can’t and never could make poor candidates into good ones, and more often than not, Trump has bet on lame horses. But this focus on his failure obscures the fact that every GOP nominee will eagerly kiss the ring. In that sense, he already won.

Real the full piece here.