The candidates who need your money the most

Don't just fret, do something

If you don’t actually want to read all these words and just want to donate to the recommended candidates, here’s a consolidated donation page.

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Nate Silver has a good post about how people should probably pay less attention to his model. The model is interesting because people care a lot about the results of the election. But hitting refresh on Silver Bulletin doesn’t change the underlying reality, and arguing about whether he’s gotten his parameters right doesn’t change anything either.

“If you care about the outcome,” he says “then vote, donate, volunteer, or try to persuade your friends.”

I think that’s correct, and it aligns with the opposition to doomscrolling that is central to our ethos here at Slow Boring. I never want to discourage anyone from consuming content (that’s our business, after all), but it’s a lot more important to do things in the world than to just read about them.

Part of what I like about having my own shop is that while reader service and “news you can use” have long been staples of journalism, it’s considered unethical in a conventional journalistic context to try to equip people with specific information about how to take effective action in politics. Personally, I don’t agree with that. We ran a post in May recommending specific races to give money to and were asked recently if we could update those recommendations now that we know more about the state of the race. So, channeling smart advice from sources that prefer to remain nameless, here is who you should give money to if you want to make a difference in 2024.

First, though, I want to say that in terms of the presidential race, I really do not recommend that you donate money to Kamala Harris.

Money helps win presidential elections (don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise), but she already has a lot and is set to outspend Donald Trump by a healthy margin. I think the big things she can do to improve her odds have to do with message and position-taking, not with the quality or quantity of her ads, both of which are already very high. I think it’s better to direct money toward important races where the marginal value of a dollar is high — which is often a situation where the good guys are getting outspent and therefore really need the cash.

The best thing you can do to support the presidential campaign is persuasion.

You can do that by talking to your friends, or you can do it by posting on social media. This is a great guidebook to posting constructively, with an accompanying web app if you get really into it.

Money can’t buy first person testimonials, social proof, or communities ties. But it can buy ads for down-ballot candidates. And the kind of direct, hard-money contributions that can only be raised from large quantities of normal people like you and me are uniquely valuable relative to huge checks to Super PACs.  Campaigns receive preferential rates on TV advertisements, which remain the best way to reach voters at scale. Super PACs and candidates can’t coordinate on public communications, which means Super PACs may not always allocate resources efficiently. As a donor, you can directly communicate your priorities to candidates, emphasizing electability and victory. Many candidates think that progressive messages are necessary to attract funding. The best way to change this is to contribute and make your voice, as someone who cares about winning, heard.

And here are the races we think you should consider donating to.

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.

Five key state supreme court races to support this cycle:

• Michigan: Kyra Harris Bolden and Kimberly Thomas are the Democratic candidates for this formally nonpartisan position. Democratic-leaning candidates currently hold a one-seat majority on the seven-member court. Bolden is running for re-election, while a victory for Thomas would further expand this majority. In Michigan, ballot roll-off is high, meaning many voters cast ballots for higher-profile races but skip down-ballot contests like the state Supreme Court. Supporting these candidates enables them to run effective campaigns, ensuring that voters fill out their ballots entirely.

• Montana: This is another formally nonpartisan race, with Jerry Lynch and Katherine Bidegaray backed by center-left groups in the state. Montana is a solidly Republican state, and these candidates (both of whom are viewed as defenders of Montana’s progressive constitution) have to overperform the fundamentals by a lot to win. This task is tough this year, because 2024 is both a presidential cycle and one that coincides with a key US Senate election in the state, which means the airwaves will be dominated by partisan messaging. That said, these Supreme Court races are non-partisan and Montanans take particular pride in their state constitution, so the races are winnable — progressive judicial candidates won in Montana as recently as 2022. Donation limits are capped at $790, so even small contributions can make a significant impact.

• North Carolina: Allison Riggs is a Democrat running for her first full term to the state's highest court, where Republicans currently have a five-to-two majority. A victory in 2024 prevents Republicans from deepening their majority, making it incrementally easier to flip the court in the future. Republicans are running some real extremists in North Carolina this cycle, from Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (their candidate for governor) to Michele Morrow (their candidate for Superintendent of Public Infrastructure). These extremist politicians have gobbled up a lot of media attention, and rightly so. But this race shouldn’t be lost in the shuffle; the path to restoring majority rule in North Carolina runs through the state supreme court. It’s worth remembering that the triumph in Wisconsin in 2023, which flipped control of that state’s high court, actually took multiple cycles. This year’s race in North Carolina is hopefully the start of a similar project.

The trajectory in North Carolina in recent years is emblematic of why these races matter. Democrats had a majority on the Supreme Court there until the 2022 midterms, but the loss of control immediately led to the reversal of a ban on partisan gerrymandering, a new badly skewed congressional map, and a state legislative gerrymander so severe that Democrats have no chance of winning a majority in either house of the state legislature, even as they’re favored in the governor’s race and competitive in the presidential. Now, this Republican majority is causing chaos in the 2024 elections. The court recently ruled that Robert F. Kennedy’s name must be removed from the ballot, leading to ballot reprinting and delaying the start of mail-in voting by two weeks. Strength in statewide Supreme Court races is key to crafting fair maps and fair election rules and having a fighting chance further down the ballot.

The House of Representatives

Kamala Harris has maintained a narrow lead in head-to-head polling against Donald Trump since the Democratic convention. Unfortunately, that’s completely consistent with a scenario in which she loses pivotal Electoral College states and Republicans secure a majority in the Senate. A triple-flip scenario in which Republicans capture the presidency and the Senate, while Democrats gain a majority in the House would be a kind of strange turn of events. But if you look at the maps and the political majorities, the House is actually the best hope against a MAGA trifecta. What’s more, precisely because Democrats’ hopes in the House rest on challengers rather than incumbents, small donor enthusiasm is particularly important.

There are lots of important races on the House map, but our recommendations here focus on 10 Democratic challengers whose GOP opponents reported higher cash-on-hand in their latest filings, either at the end of the second quarter or a pre-primary filing, whichever is more recent.

There are plenty of worthy candidates out there, but in terms of cost-effective spending, these are the races where money is most needed.

We’ve discussed Adam Gray in CA-13 and Janelle Bynum in OR-5 before on Slow Boring. And I also want to specifically mention Whitney Fox (FL-13), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), and Rebecca Cooke (WI-3) as particularly on-brand candidates who are running as moderates in red-leaning districts against hardline MAGA types whose extremism has put the races in play for savvy Democrats. These are the kind of races that I, personally, am most interested in. Our friends at Welcome PAC are supporting all three of these women, Fox and Cooke are backed by the Blue Dog Caucus, and Stelson is a New Democrat. I want to show the world that candidates who take on the challenge of beating extremists on red terrain by showing ideological moderation and issue flexibility are supported and encouraged.

The others are in the more conventional situation of running in blue-leaning districts where there’s a chance of winnable races getting blown due to lack of funds:

• Amish Shah (AZ-01): A former state legislator, Amish Shah won a crowded primary in July. He faces Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican who supported Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Primaries are costly, and in Shah’s pre-primary filing, he reported just $216,508.02 cash on hand compared to $1,548,760.87 for Schweikert.

• Rudy Salas (CA-22): In a rematch of 2022, Rudy Salas is running against Rep. David Valadao, one of only two House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Trump and is still serving. This district covers portions of the Central Valley, with a heavily Latino population and is marked by low rates of voter turnout.

• Carl Marlinga (MI-10): This is another 2022 rematch, with Carl Marlinga hoping to unseat first term Congressman John James. This race could have gone the other way for Democrats in 2022 had they spent more on it — James outpaced Marlinga by almost 2.5 million dollars. House Majority PAC, Democrats’ primary Super PAC for the U.S. House, is trying to correct this in 2024 and is going up on the airwaves in the district. 

• Sue Altman (NJ-07): Sue Altman’s background is as a progressive (she used to lead New Jersey’s Working Families Party). In her bid for a swing congressional seat, though, she’s realized the path to victory runs through the center. She’s tried to moderate her image, expressing support for the bipartisan immigration deal and disavowing defunding the police, and has been endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel.  

• John Mannion (NY-22): A State Senator in New York, John Mannion is running in an upstate district that includes Syracuse and Utica. He faces Rep. Brian Williams in a district that shifted incrementally to the left when Democrats redrew the state’s congressional lines earlier this year.

In the states

Arizona has been in a state of political turmoil in recent cycles, with Biden winning in 2020 and Democrats now holding most statewide offices, even as the GOP continues to dominate the state legislature. The state also has a kind of odd population geography. The majority of the population lives in a single county, Maricopa, which while increasingly blue, is a lot more conservative than the typical urban core county. The Maricopa County Recorder and the County Board of Supervisors both play critical roles in election administration, and Republicans have nominated election deniers for both races.

The takeover of the Arizona GOP by extremists has hurt the party’s electoral fortunes, but also raised the stakes around these races. If election deniers win, they could disrupt the voting process or certification in a key swing state going forward. The less attention people pay to a race, the more campaign spending matters, so these incredibly low-profile races are a good use of money.

• Tim Stringham (Maricopa County Recorder): Stringham is a veteran and a lawyer, running for the office that administers the mail voting process in Maricopa County and maintains voter registration for more than 2.4 million eligible Arizona voters.

• Joel Navarro (County Board of Supervisors, District 1): Navarro has worked for three decades as a firefighter and paramedic with the Phoenix Fire Department, where he’s currently Deputy Chief. The board of supervisors governs the county and, crucially, controls the budget for election administration.

Similarly, most people don’t follow state legislative races closely, so they’re another great opportunity for campaign donations that make a difference. And if you’re looking for candidates to support, The States Project’s Give Smart slate is a great place to start. The races on this list are, for the most part, majority-making races, and candidates are deploying evidence-based strategies, ensuring that donations are effectively used. This cycle, the Give Smart slate includes races in Wisconsin, where Democrats have a chance to flip the Wisconsin House; North Carolina, where Democrats are trying to break the GOP supermajority; Nevada, where Democrats can build and protect supermajorities in the state legislature; Arizona, where the party has a chance at a trifecta (they won the gubernatorial race in 2022); and Michigan, where Democrats are defending a trifecta.

Whatever you do, do something

This is my best advice about the optimal use of campaign money.

But I think it’s important to note that we’re not talking about allocating a fixed pool of resources. While you are, of course, free to be totally indifferent to American politics, if you’re reading this post right now, you’re probably not at all indifferent. My strong sense, though, is that too many not-at-all-indifferent people are spending time and psychic energy on things like “feeling stressed about the election” and “arguing with the biggest shithead on Twitter.”

If these things are genuinely bringing you joy in life, then by all means, carry on. But they probably aren’t, and they’re certainly not the most constructive things you can do with your time.

If you’re nervous about the election and the future of the country do something about it. Talk to undecided voters you have a personal connection, and tell them something you think they may not have already heard that is relevant to their lives. Give money to the candidates who are most likely to benefit from your money. Talk to people you know who already have their minds made up about how they can be more effective and more strategic with their own communications and giving. No one of us can single-handedly determine the future of the country. But we all have a good deal of agency, and almost everyone feels better in the medium term if they take concrete action, even if worrying or emoting seems more satisfactory in the short term.