GOP Operative Turned Advocate and Political Observer
I sat down this week with National Journal‘s Josh Kraushaar for his Against the Grain podcast to talk about the midterm outlook, what could go wrong for Republicans, why Democrats have struggled to move the Biden agenda, and take a closer look at the electability of GOP recruits.
A few key moments:
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.
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.