Before I get to this week’s Mailbag, I’ve gotten some questions about whether or not we have an updated list of donation recommendations since the slate we published back in July. And the answer is — no, I think those recommendations hold up.
To be clear, though, the presumption of the recommendation is that you are a normal person interested in making small- to medium-sized hard-money contributions to candidates. We identified a list of people based on a balance of how pivotal/strategic their race is, how much extra money is actually needed, and how aligned the candidate is with Slow Boring’s priorities and worldview. To make a list like this useful, I think it’s important to keep the list short, and that means that plenty of perfectly good candidates running in important races end up off the list.
If you’re a billionaire who can easily afford to give to more candidates, you should by all means do that. I feel bad to not be recommending Scott Wiener (who’s been on our list in the past) in his runoff against Connie Chan, for example. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, who’s running for governor of Alaska, is amazing. I’m very intrigued by what Adam Hamilton is cooking up in Kansas. There’s a wide range of worthy House challengers associated with the Blue Dogs and Welcome PAC who I like a lot. I wouldn’t want anyone to assume that the failure to include someone who seems broadly Slow Boring-aligned reflects a negative judgment on them as candidates. It’s just that I think the list is most effective when it’s really selective and reflects judgment not just about the candidates but about where your hard money is most likely to make a difference.
Speaking of which, we’ve raised nearly $1 million for the slate so far. That’s a ton in a cycle when fundraising has generally been a problem for Dems. Thanks for everything you do!
Greg S: There are many ways to gauge influence but one is access to powerful people. How many US Senators would take your phone call directly?
I have the phone numbers of exactly three senators. I don’t know that they’d pick up if I called out of the blue, but I try to text judiciously.
Neil Mehrotra: Can Gina Hinojosa really win Texas governor’s race? Her profile as a state legislator would not have seemed to position her to win statewide, but she seems to have successfully positioned herself as a moderate. Is this just an example of the Abbott campaign being slow to respond?
The polls show her within striking distance but definitely behind. For her to win you’d need there to be a meaningful polling error in Democrats’ favor (which is conceptually possible but I wouldn’t bank on it) or for something new to happen in the race that deals a further blow to Abbott. The betting odds heavily favor Greg Abbott, and I don’t see any reason to doubt that.
If the final result ends up being like the polls — which is to say close-ish but not exactly a razor-thin margin — I think people will think of it as a missed opportunity on two levels.
One is that while Hinojosa has run an extremely smart campaign with some very based campaign ads touting her law enforcement endorsements, featuring a January 6 participant who’s supporting her, and portraying herself as an advocate of low taxes, she’s not really someone who has a pre-campaign reputation as a moderate. The ideal profile for a statewide Democratic candidate in Texas would be a Hispanic moderate from South Texas. Vicente Gonzalez or some equivalent type of guy in the state legislature or former Representative Filemon Vela would be my top choices.
The other is just that while Democrats had a big financial edge in the early Trump election cycles, the money now favors Republicans. If this were the 2018 or 2020 fundraising environment, I think there’d be a strong case for investing a lot of money in Hinojosa’s gubernatorial run. She could conceivably win, and a win there would be very high value. Spending on her campaign would be complementary to spending on a key Senate race and a couple of key House races. It’s not a crazy idea. It’s just hard to make the case for it in a world of financial scarcity where Democrats are at a financial disadvantage all across the board.