Welcome back to the Best and the Brightest, and thanks to my colleagues Julia Ioffe, Tina Nguyen, Peter Hamby and now Abby Livingston for holding it down! A couple months ago, I visited Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire, where I was genuinely stunned by his overwhelming discomfort as a presidential candidate. At a diner, the layup of all campaign events, DeSantis struggled to merely look voters in the eye, and tried to jettison the press. It was already clear to me that the hype outweighed the hope: he was a test tube donor candidate, if I’d ever seen one.

These days, the level of donor anxiety around DeSantis is palpable. I’m told that he will try to quell fears next week with a Reaganomics-inflected economic policy speech—you know, the “shining city on a hill,” and so forth. But it might already be too late. Tonight, after Abby’s Capitol Hill readout, I’m focusing on the latest donor pet project: Jeff Roe’s first love—Glenn Youngkin.

But first…

• The Establishment’s establishment: One of the great rituals among the uber–elite in Washington—the high-ranking administration officials, politicians, and power brokers, etcetera—is gaining membership to…