Brainwrap has a nice diary up about how to contribute to various candidates via ActBlue. In keeping with an approach that Sam Wang at Princeton Election Consortium has done with previous cycles, where he provides information about where your dollar will go the furthest in terms of electing a person from your preferred party (Dems for us, of course); and remembering how effective money given to Stacy Abrams’ organization was in helping elect not one, but two Dem senators and bringing us a surprise win in Georgia; I got to wondering, and asked Brainwrap — “which candidates are most likely to use contributions wisely (from my perspective, that means registering new voters and getting already registered voters to actually vote).” He didn’t know the answer and so I said I’d “ask around.” :-).
Which is what I am doing.
If you live in a competitive district, be it congressional or at the state legislative level, do you think “your” candidate is making wise use of the money being donated, or just doing the “same old, same old” with TV ads, mail flyers, etc.?
My wife and I live in a deep blue state (Hawaii), and whoever the Dem nominees are in our congressional district, state house district, and governorship are gonna win, without a dime from us. So we’d like to make contributions to candidates that know how to use the money wisely (have already sent $$ off to Tim Ryan in OH).
So — let’s see if we can identify “high return” candidates — not just because they are likely to win (which certainly helps), but because they will really use the money in a way that generates new voters for them.