This is my opinionated summary of Yglesias’ (former guest on 80k podcast) recent analysis on how to give effectively to moderate Democrats this election.
Rather than doom scrolling and only reading about the US election, Americans should do something and donate effectively to get moderate Democrats elected.
You can donate more effectively than giving directly to the Harris campaign. Harris will outspend Trump by a lot and the quality and quantity of Harris ads are already very high. It's better to donate to more neglected key races where the marginal value of a dollar is high — where the good candidates are getting outspent and thus really need the cash. Americans should donate up to $63,700 on this consolidated donation page to:
- House of Representatives: The analysis finds 10 Democratic challengers whose GOP opponents received more donations than them. There’s a risk that Dems lose the presidency and the Senate, donating to these candidates might stop the worst-case scenario of losing the House as well (more).
- State supreme court races. A really underrated, under-funded, under-the-radar place to direct money is to state supreme court races. Courts are important for all sorts of boring, obvious reasons. But they’re also key pieces on the chessboard in the larger partisan fights over democracy — they’re an important check on gerrymandering and can also facilitate or sabotage ballot initiatives and other things downstream. (more).
- In the States. You can donate to moderates in Arizona, a key swing state, to stop election deniers from getting into positions that would help them to disrupt the voting process or certification (more). You can also donate an additional $8k to state legislative races, which are very neglected (more).
Small donors can have a big counterfactual by giving directly to the campaigns of neglected down-ballot candidates. Huge checks by rich people to Super PACs are not as effective here, since they can't coordinate with the candidates and direct campaign contributions get better rates on TV ads, which is the best way to reach voters at scale.
Consider posting this analysis on social media and send it directly to people who you think might want to effectively donate to moderate Democrats.
Cf The case for contributing to the 2024 US election with your time & money
I wanted to highlight one particular U.S. House race that Matt Yglesias mentions:
In addition to running in a swing district, Amish Shah is an advocate for animal rights. See my quick take about him here.