Political campaign contributions

[firecat]

Politically engaged readers in the US who contribute financially: How do you decide which election campaigns to give money to? I’m getting about a dozen requests a day and I’m so sick of them I’m disinclined to support any, but that doesn’t feel wise. I believe in supporting my representatives but it also seems like a good idea to support key races elsewhere but I don’t know how to decide which ones. I’d rather pick a few to focus on than give small amounts to all of them.

Comments

[ursula]

I look for competitive races that are close to me geographically. This year it's a bit harder because I have been disappointed that a candidate I had planned to support has not been speaking out on an issue important to me, so I have been waiting and watching. I might give more in a very local race.

[adrian_turtle]

That is my standard as well. I am frustrated with how well it didn't work in 2020, when I supported Sara Gideon of Maine. (Most people have never heard of her. She was running against Senator Susan Collins.) Southern Maine is only 90 minutes from here, when traffic cooperates, and Boston groups have carpooled up there to help with canvassing as well as contributing money and phone banking.

I was frustrated, but not so much because Gideon lost. I supported Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore; they lost, but I didn't feel like the time or money I spent on them was wasted. The Sara Gideon campaign collected a LOT of money, far more than they spent on actual campaigning. They turned away offers to canvass, saying they wanted to save that kind of effort for a better strategic time and only use specially trained Mainers. From my perspective, it seemed like their phone and text banking was more "please give us money," "please come canvass for us," and collecting information for better canvassing. Not so much "please remember to vote for Sara, she's great!"

The money surplus was probably just mismanagement? And a couple of years afterwards the campaign ended up donating the extra millions of dollars to good causes. It's not like I have a problem with supporting legal aid in Maine...I might perfectly well have supported similar services locally or at the southwest border. I just feel cheated because they didn't even try to use my mites of help against Collins.

At any rate, I feel like I should look at whether a campaign is being managed competently. As well as whether I like the candidate, and whether they are running against someone who can plausibly be beaten. The distinction may be irrational of me, but politics sometimes is.

[firecat]

Doesn’t sound irrational to me.

Do you know of ways to determine whethet a campaign is being run competently, without contacting it directly?

[firecat]

Thanks!