In investing, we want to diversify our holdings to ensure that we don't lose too much money if any one asset's value crashes. More technically, we want to minimize the overall risk of our portfolio by investing in a basket of uncorrelated assets, which can be encapsulated in an index fund. Likewise, if a donor is interested in supporting a bunch of EA-aligned political candidates, wouldn't it be better to donate to a political action committee (PAC) that supports all of them, such as Guarding Against Pandemics?
Note: Under U.S. election law, individuals and corporations can contribute up to $5000 to a PAC,[1] and PACs can donate their proceeds to political campaigns (up to $2600-5000 per candidate). Super PACs can receive unlimited amounts of money from donors but cannot donate their proceeds directly to candidates.[2]
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FEC - Contribution limits
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Ballotpedia - PACs and Super PACs
I believe the comment you linked to in 1 is referring to the Protect Our Future super PAC, which was, in Carrick’s case buying ads for him and could not donate to his campaign directly.
My understanding is that the GAP (non-super) PAC donates directly to candidates (up to $5000), that they can then spend those funds the same as any other campaign contribution.
The benefit, as it was explained to me, was that GAP is in contact with the candidates, does some amount of vetting, and the candidates see that the money comes from them. An individual donation woul... (read more)