The candidates who deserve your money

Our first recommendations of the cycle

Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (Photo by the Washington Post)

I almost can’t believe that I’ve been writing Slow Boring for five years. It is, in fact, so hard to believe that I didn’t pull together any big reflective musings this year on what I’ve learned or where we are as a publication.

But I think it’s fitting that the anniversary coincides with the release of our latest slate of recommendations for political donations. I wrote last week about principal-agent problems in the donor-adviser business, and one advantage I have as a writer is that anyone reading these recommendations has access to tons of information about what I think and what my values are.

And I think that the MAGA movement is a major threat to the American constitutional order and to the future of liberalism. I think that to check this movement, the Democratic Party needs to be a bigger tent in terms of electoral strategy and also a serious drive for reform in blue states.

I of course hope that even readers who don’t agree with that advice or with the Slow Boring worldview in its entirety can still find value in articles about the alleged asylum-to-prison swap, the Italian Front in World War I, and condominium liability rules. But this is a publication driven by a mission, and I want to thank everyone who has helped advance that mission by subscribing. We’ve succeeded over these past five years beyond my wildest dreams, and I’m looking forward to the year to come.

---

For the past few cycles, Slow Boring has offered candidate recommendations to those of you who are interested in making financial contributions. And now that the off-year races in New Jersey and Virginia are behind us, it’s time to look ahead to the midterms and do it again.

If this had come out a few weeks ago, Representative Jared Golden would likely have been one of our top recommendations. But just as we began working on it, he announced that he won’t be running for re-election.

Before proceeding with the list, though, I wanted to talk a little bit about Golden because I’m pretty angry about the situation.

By his own account, Golden’s decision to quit Congress isn’t about the primary challenge he’s facing from Maine State Auditor Matt Dunlap, and I take Golden at his word. He’s making very good points about the ugliness that modern politics exposes his children to, and also about the merits of focusing on his role as a husband and father rather than being a backbench House member in a world where Congress is increasingly unproductive.

So I want to be clear that I’m not saying that Dunlap is the real reason that Golden is retiring. But consider the circumstances in which a Dunlap primary challenge could exist.

Jared Golden flipped a Trump district in the 2018 wave.

This was noteworthy, impressive even … but maybe not so impressive. After all, Barack Obama won the seat twice. Maybe it was just buyers’ remorse and the voters are flipping back. But he won it again in 2020 even as Donald Trump carried the district handily, and then again in 2022 with an unpopular Joe Biden in the White House and the G.O.P. candidate for governor carrying the district. Then he won it a fourth time in 2024, in a cycle where ME-2 was by far the Trumpiest district to be held by a Democrat. Jared Golden is House Democrats’ Most Valuable Player, by far.

And yet in all this time, there were no big Jared Golden features in national magazines. The media cool kids in Brooklyn weren’t firing off endless takes about how Democrats need to learn the lessons of Jared Golden.

You’d think that a political party and a political movement that is (allegedly) obsessed with the threat posed by Donald Trump and MAGA would be obsessed with the single most effective politician in the party. But instead he is at best ignored by the national anti-Trump movement because his general vibe and affect and issue positioning doesn’t really speak to the donors or to writers in Brooklyn or to the staffer class.

But of course, that’s the point. Democrats don’t need to learn from people who appeal to the voters who hate Donald Trump. They need to learn from people who appeal to the voters who don’t hate Donald Trump. That is literally the assignment. But absolutely everything about the ecosystem of left-of-center America — both the left-left but also the establishment — completely rejects this. Your Pod Save America / MSNBC / Senate Majority PAC types are a million times more open to the idea that we need to learn from a guy who wins 50 percent in New York City than from a guy who wins 50 percent in rural Maine.

I say at best he’s ignored because when national progressive politics does pay attention to Golden, it’s to get mad at him.

Progressive nonprofits ran ads criticizing him for opposing the budget resolution and other inconsequential votes, joining Republicans on stuff that would have passed one way or another. Indivisible chapters organized anti-Golden protests. A statewide elected official took a pass on challenging Susan Collins for Senate to run a primary against Golden. Of course he finds politics to be a frustrating experience that’s not worth time away from his family. That’s just what we get from a political party being run in a deeply unserious way, by a group of people who are utterly failing to meet the moment.

The second Golden steps down, everyone with half a brain says this is a disaster for the Democratic Party. But there were years for people capable of reading a table to celebrate Golden and to make obvious inferences like, “Democrats should find ways to be more like the Blue Dogs who perform dramatically better than every other sub-group in the party.” Instead we got silence from most and counterproductive behavior from many.

So in that spirit, here’s an early look at some politicians worth supporting in the 2026 cycle. I imagine that, down the road, we’ll narrow the list to focus on the close races where I think contributions will be cost-effective. At this point, though, we’re far enough out that many of these recommendations are about trying to intervene in primaries: to help good candidates, if not exactly Golden-level candidates, run and win in winnable races.

We’re also trying to be mindful of cost-effectiveness with our official recommendations. The presumption is that cash is a limited resource, so you want to give it to candidates who aren’t just good but approximately optimal. There are, however, other resources available to you besides cash — like praise, social media attention, and telling your friends and family to vote for someone. So I’m also going to note below a few candidates who, for fussy analytics reasons, probably aren’t optimal recipients of money but are still worth supporting.

A note for those of you who prefer to direct your financial giving elsewhere: we’ll once again be organizing our Giving Tuesday fundraiser for GiveDirectly, so stay tuned for more on that.

Some general considerations

I always launch these things with an exhortation to remember that giving hard money contributions — money that goes directly to a candidate’s campaign, not to a PAC — is important.

Hard money contributions are especially valuable because campaign ads are such an important part of winning elections. Huge swaths of funds are sloshing around the super PAC and independent expenditure ecosystems, but candidates get better rates on their ads than other entities do. The individual contribution limits are also relatively low, so billionaires can’t pump tons of money into this channel.

Money isn’t the only way to make a difference, of course. As Election Day grows near, people around the country start paying closer attention and feeling nervous and wanting to take action.

That often takes the form of phone-banking or door-knocking or other volunteer activities. I never want to discourage people from volunteering their time, but I do want to caution that these canvassing activities actually have very poor cost-effectiveness. Even though you’re donating your time, the organizing costs money.

If you want to engage in politics beyond contributing money (and you should!), I think posting mindfully is a very underrated thing to do. Enthusiasm is contagious, and people like to support candidates who seem cool and like they have the support of other people. Providing novel factual information — especially factual information directly related to people’s self-interest — can change minds.

Still, money matters.

And it matters particularly in lower-profile races, in down-ballot races, and in relatively inexpensive media markets where small amounts of money can go a long way.

In previous rounds of recommendations, we’ve focused on races with closely contested general elections. In this next slate of recommendations ahead of the 2026 cycle, we are retaining that focus — it is essential to break the G.O.P. federal trifecta and try to win a Senate majority. But we’re also widening the aperture of our approach and rolling out two new components: prioritizing competitive primaries, and including some safe-seat primaries.

Primaries are contests where dollars go further. There’s more room for persuasion as these contests aren’t polarized along partisan lines, and awareness of the candidates is also lower. Quality candidates also do much more to increase Democratic win odds in closely contested races compared to tactical level interventions like voter registration and paid ads, though these tactics remain a key part of any pathway to victory.

We are including some safe seats because, as Waleed Shahid argues, they are often where the party image is defined. One critique you often hear about efforts to “moderate” the party is that politics has become so polarized that national brands determine everything. But those brands don’t emerge from nowhere. By ensuring that young, energetic, reform-minded lawmakers win these contests, we can improve blue state governance and the overall image of the party. This is not a core focus of our recommendations, because Democrats’ focus ought to be on beating Republicans. But there are some important opportunities this cycle we want to highlight.

If you’re ready to give without reading another 1,000 words, we’ve made it easy for you to split your donation among all of the candidates recommended below, or customize it however you like. Or you can read on to learn more about the candidates.

Our top recommendations, for now

Geoff Duncan — Georgia Governor: Duncan is the former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia who broke with the party over Trump’s 2020 election lies and who is now running in the Democratic primary. The primary is competitive, with Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Atlanta mayor and Biden administration official, as the frontrunner. Duncan brings the sort of crossover appeal that likely offers Democrats their best shot at flipping the governor’s mansion and breaking the G.O.P. trifecta in the Peach State. And of course, beyond the mechanical impact of nominating the most electable candidate, I think the symbolism of a party that includes prominent ex-Republicans outraged by MAGA’s lawlessness, as well as democratic socialists, is important.

Control of the governor’s office would also provide Democrats leverage in future redistricting fights, especially if the Supreme Court strikes down or weakens Section II of the Voting Rights Act, though Republicans could try to limit the governor’s role in redistricting. Duncan would need to win re-election in 2030 to be governor during the next scheduled redistricting cycle, but an incumbent Democratic governor would give the party its best odds of being in power during that crucial window.

Seth Moulton — Massachusetts Senate Seat: This is Slow Boring dabbling in a party-defining safe-seat race, which isn’t something we’ve historically done.

But Moulton is a Marine veteran and two-time Bronze Star recipient running as a generational-change candidate in a New England state. He also has a meaningful record of bipartisanship in the House, while incumbent Ed Markey is a fairly hard-left green (his was one of only two votes against the pro-nuclear ADVANCE Act). And at 79, Markey will almost certainly be too old to use his safe seat to advocate in a compelling way for the entirety of a six-year Senate term. Moulton was one of the first congressional Democrats to call for Biden to step aside in 2024, has tried to prompt some reconsideration among Democrats on girls’ sports, and is in general an independent thinker. His victory would deal a meaningful blow to the groups’ stranglehold on safe-seat senators.

Josh Turek — Iowa Senate Seat: A two-time Paralympic gold medalist and state legislator representing one of the reddest seats held by a Democrat in Iowa, Turek has a track record of overperforming to the degree necessary to put an Iowa statewide race in play for a Democrat. Born with spina bifida, he won his state house race by a razor thin margin and positioned himself as a “common-sense” moderate. He’s running against two candidates in the Democratic primary who honestly are pretty good, but they’re also more progressive than Turek in what’s currently a pretty red state and lack his strong electoral track record. If he gets the nomination, Democrats have a real chance of winning the seat.

Jasmeet Bains — California’s 22nd District: A doctor and one of the most moderate Democrats in the California Assembly, Bains has built a reputation for independence by breaking with her party on energy and public-safety issues. She’s running for Congress in a non-partisan primary against Republican David Valadao, who has a history of overperformance, and against another Democrat who is more left-wing and backed by the California Working Families Party. Bains is a great example of how taking district-aligned votes in the state legislature can position someone to run for federal office in redder turf.

Ben McAdams — Utah’s 1st District: McAdams is likely to launch a congressional campaign in the coming weeks, and early support to his campaign ensures he can hit the ground running. Though McAdams filed to run in the 4th district, he’ll likely run in the new 1st, a Harris +24 Democratic district, though only D+14 at the Senate level. McAdams served in Congress from 2019 until 2021, in a swing district representing much of Salt Lake County. Since then, he’s worked with cities across the country to increase housing supply. Welcome PAC made the case for supporting McAdams based on his record of overperformance, high favorables, and pragmatic politics. With Utah drifting left, McAdams could eventually even be a compelling statewide candidate, if he maintains his independent streak as a House member.

Bobby Pulido — Texas’s 15th District: A Tejano musician from South Texas, Pulido pairs high name recognition with district-aligned positions on the issues. On the border, for instance, he advocates for a “tough but fair” system that protects families while cracking down on cartels and fentanyl trafficking. Beyond winning this seat as part of a strategy to flip the U.S. House, supporting Pulido is key to building a pipeline of moderate Latino Democrats. Their prominence could help staunch the party’s bleeding with the group and create a bench that could potentially run statewide campaigns in the right-of-the-nation state with a Latino plurality.

Rebecca Cooke — Wisconsin’s 3rd District: Cooke is a Slow Boring favorite. We raised money for her in 2024 and again at the start of this year, and we want to continue to do so going into 2026. Endorsed by both the Blue Dogs and Senator Bernie Sanders, Cooke has positioned herself as a pragmatic populist and has a record of overperformance from 2024. She, ideally, would see this Trump-leaning district be redrawn into a more favorable seat ahead of 2026 midterms, but so far this has not happened (something we’ll talk about in the next section).

Anita Earls — North Carolina Supreme Court: We raised more than $50,000 for Allison Riggs last cycle, in a race for the state’s high court. Riggs won re-election by less than a thousand votes, prevailing in the face of Republicans trying to literally steal the seat from her and a majority of North Carolina voters.

Against that backdrop, defending Anita Earls’s seat, which is one of only three two (thanks to Blair for the correction in the comments) that Democrats hold at the state Supreme Court, is essential to the broader goal of retaking a court majority ahead of the next redistricting round after 2030. Flipping this majority is the single best way to ensure North Carolina has fair legislative and congressional maps again.

While there’s a Wisconsin Supreme Court race next spring — and in the past we’ve raised for pro-democracy candidates there (the Wisconsin Supreme Court is non-partisan) — we aren’t fundraising in that state this cycle. Liberal justices flipped the Wisconsin court in 2023 and held it in 2025, but they have so far failed to deliver fair congressional maps, even as they forced the G.O.P. legislature to adopt fairer state legislative lines. If they act with greater urgency on Wisconsin’s gerrymander, we may reconsider supporting candidates in Wisconsin Supreme Court races.

Kris Mayes — Arizona Attorney General: Like Duncan, Mayes is a former Republican who served on Arizona’s Corporation Commission before leaving the G.O.P. in 2019, turned off by Trump’s conduct and values. Three years later, she won the Democratic primary for attorney general, and then the general election by just a few hundred votes in one of the tightest contests in the state’s history. Her victory shows what a true “big-tent” coalition looks like in practice. Democrats should welcome disaffected Republicans like Mayes and find ways to meaningfully incorporate them into the party’s future.

Three other candidates I like

Below are three other House primaries in which I have a strong preference, but I slightly hesitate to recommend them as top donation priorities because they’re playing out in expensive media markets. I would absolutely recommend voting for these candidates, telling your friends about them, posting nice things about them, and at least considering a financial contribution. But for now, I see them as less strategic from a resource-allocation point of view.

Scott Wiener — California’s 11th District: Wiener is probably the highest-profile YIMBY politician in the country, and I would be remiss not to support him in his quest for higher office. The theory of the case here, as I understand it, is that because it’s not term-limited, the San Francisco House seat functions as both a hub of local political power and a launchpad into federal politics. San Francisco is a big city awash in money, and I think what will be determinative here is probably local power-brokers rather than out-of-state small donors. But keep an eye on it.

Alex Bores — New York’s 12th District: The retiring incumbent, Jerry Nadler, was my congressman growing up, and both my dad and my brother live in this district so it feels close to home. Bores, currently serving in the assembly, is young and very smart with a technical background in computers and a legislative interest in A.I. safety, as well as other Slow Boring causes like improving the regulation of online sports gambling. Manhattan is, again, not a great place to stretch your campaign dollars, but I like Bores a lot.

Cait Conley — New York’s 17th District: Another example of an expensive district that may not pass the cost-benefit test is the Hudson Valley seat currently held by Mike Lawler. But Conley is running on a smart cost-of-living agenda informed by the politics of abundance, as well as her biography as a special operations combat veteran. I have somewhat mixed feelings about the Democratic Party’s tendency to lean on national security credentials as a signal of moderation, but it is true factually that this strategy has given us a large share of our best young politicians.