Liam Donovan

Politics. Hoyas. YMMV. Views expressed are mine alone, obviously. @TargetedVictory

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

Enjoyed discussing the midterm election state of play with the great @amyewalter on @ianbremmer's @gzeromedia show. Full episode here:

📺: https://t.co/K1hQJLEnML
🎧: https://t.co/MbxtbPQ7NY

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@JasonZellman @FaustAndTrue If the president is especially unpopular, using him at the tipping point is probably less effective than sending him to shore up the soft spots where he still has juice.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

Given the general uncertainty of the cycle and the specific saturation of a map that has been obvious for 18 months, throwing a few million at your tail risk is wise.

[Shane Goldmacher @ShaneGoldmacher]

An IE report from SLF, the big Senate GOP super PAC, that reveals the state of affairs in final 10 days. Spending in:

SC ($978k)
NE ($960k)
KS ($720k)
MS ($572k)

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@JasonZellman Again, if you're sitting on a pile of cash a week out from the election, you are better off allocating it to places where it can actually have an impact. Whatever has been spent in these states, the core map has already absorbed exponentially more.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@veryfineppl People always try to impute outcomes by looking at where late spending is concentrated, but this is a pretty unique map. House probably more instructive.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@Taniel KS is outside of that core map I thinking of and could at least conceivably have not reached the same point of diminishing returns. But I also do not see it flipping without at least 4-5 others tipping before it.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@jstein_sun Point of order, I believe the proper nomenclature is Dans Sullivan

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@JasonZellman I don't think optimism has anything to do with it. Pretty clear what it is. The marginal dollar in any of the core states is a drop in the bucket; if you get bit by anything in that next tier you'll have a lot of explaining to do.

[Sean T at RCP @SeanTrende]

One of the fascinating questions in this election is whether 1974/1994/2006 really do belong to a different era.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@willsommer Fwiw I did not know who she was until the clown show erupted

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

The @kevinroose book is really good.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@NY_LBSS @CJohnsonAELI It's more or less a free version of cowork--all purpose agentic assistant for normies, without having to choose between chat or work mode.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

Just used muse to sign up for 7 different teacher conferences by giving one link and two screenshots. Just a really good utility tool for tedious tasks.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@stagmontsinkie @robertisnthere Certainly possible, just not something Ds would have any business feeling good about in a presidential year.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

Mix of expectations undertow and poll denial obscures the real debate here--whether a great night for Ds in the macro sense translates into big raw gains. Best thing going for Rs is that this map can absorb a lot of surf.

[Michael Kruse @michaelkruse]

“Structurally, the Senate is built to be Republican, and the question is whether this wave can breach that levee,” @LPDonovan tells @llerer. “It is incredibly hard.” https://t.co/LyIay87zca

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

I actually think this is directionally true with only minor exaggeration.

[Khoa @1980Khoa]

The number of times that this clown switches his stance 180 degree is quite impressive. One week it is "democrats can get up to 58 senate seats" and another week it is "republicans have a solid chance to hold the senate." It is clear that he has no idea what the outcome will be.

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

There’s a lot of this vibe in DC these days.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@robertisnthere Given the way the state has trended over the past decade there's an argument to be made that TX could be sticky. The others are very difficult holds, and the bigger the blast radius, the more true that is. (Put KS in same category.)

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

CO was the obvious rental--in the same way that most of these would be rentals for Ds. 2014 was inflated by the fact that a disastrous 2008 cycle allowed them to stick around for another 6 years in places they no longer had any business winning (not unlike 2018 being a function of 2012 failure.)

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

Ye olde expectations game

[Andrew Howard @andrewjfhoward]

NEW: Senior Democrats are tempering their expectations about how big of a House majority they might win, as both parties see a tightening map.

Comes after a barrage of GOP spending.

w/ @meredithllee
https://t.co/8a0IgBSfXR

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

@reedtcampbell In a way it would be more impressive if it was at like 60% with little GOP support. Instead Republicans agree, they just have a totally different idea of what the corruption in question refers to.

[Liam Donovan @LPDonovan]

The amount of money and energy that will go into retroactively ascribing an overdetermined wave to This One Issue in an effort to prime the narrative heading into 2028 is something to behold.

[Patrick Ruffini @PatrickRuffini]

Prime example of what @adamkovac talks about of bandwagon groups running ads on the #10 ranked issue in the hopes of stealing credit for a victory that had nothing to do with them.

Literally the playbook The Groups™️ run every cycle.