Ask Anything: On donations

From our beloved Patreon supporters, a question:

“Running from the assumptions that (1) postcards to voters is silly/unhelpful, and (2) all the text spam I get for donations would, if made, go to the fundraising racket and not to actual candidates, (3) the national Democratic organization is terrible and not backing the right horses, and (4) any money sent to Amy McGrath to beat McConnell in multiple cycles could have better been spent on the ground floor of loomcoin, but ALSO (5) its is bad when fascists have unlimited campaign funds and money matters in campaigns, what are good tools to determine the marginal value of giving to races we don’t get to vote in? After the Princeton Election blog folks slunk away in shame after 2016, how do we decide what is a good place to send money, or are we really incapable of moving the needle as little donors?”

I don’t think the question of donations, for those who like the idea of donating some measure of scarce resources to candidates, is particularly complicated. Money is not the dispositive determinant of every election but it matters, and led by Elon plutocrats have restored the traditional Republican advantage. I’m genuinely mystified by how much people continue to discuss the 2020 Kentucky Senate race, but the very, very, very obvious lesson from it is not “never donate to political candidates” but “avoid giving money to candidates with plenty of money and — this the important one! — no chance of winning.”

As we get closer to the election, a site like Downballot will provide finer-grained targets based on current polling, cash on hand, tipping points, etc. But at this stage, it would be premature to slice the guanciale that finely. The most important election, because of its role in the confirmation process, is the U.S. Senate. And it matters not only because its the only way to stop Trump from furter consolidating neoconfederate power of the judiciary, but every seat won makes it less likely that a prospective Democratic president in 2029 will have a Republican majority Senate, giving the president all of the contemporary disadvantages of incumbency with no chance of accomplishing anything. (Imagine Alito or Thomas leaves the Court via natural causes and they again can’t be replaced.)

So this is pretty straightforward. There are plenty of competitive races with solid candidates you can donate to — North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Alaska, Maine, Texas, Georgia, Michigan after tomorrow, even Nebraska. ActBlue has a setup where you can make a donation and have it split among the 7 top marginal Senate candidates. If you asked me, I would probably start with Peltola, Telerico, Jackson, and Turek. But feel free to make your own judgments based on your own senses of viability, ideological affinity, whatever. All of these races are critically important and they can all use money at this stage. We can start doing some triage later in the cycle.