(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Winning the 2024 Elections: Doing What Matters Most in the Homestretch [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-09-26 You’ve committed to voting for Harris-Walz and supporting Democrats up and down the ballot. With six weeks to go before the November 5th election, and early voting already underway, what’s the best use of your money and time to help win the Presidency and other vital down-ballot races? While the seven “swing states” (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada) that have decided recent presidential elections are most likely to do so again, you can make a big difference even if you don’t live in one of those states. Below is a to-do list in rough order of importance. It is impossible to say definitively--though some have tried--which one of these categories and organizations represents the most effective use of your marginal dollar; they all matter and ideally donors should give money across the board. Check Your Own Voter Registration and Support Voter Registration Efforts Getting registered to vote, checking your own registration, and encouraging others to register is vital. This is especially true for those who have moved—as some forty million Americans do each year—and for college students who want to register in the state where they attend school. Registration deadlines begin closing in some states in early October. VoteAmerica.org is an exceptional one-stop site for confirming your registration, getting registered, checking state reporting deadlines, and troubleshooting any voting-related problems. Donating to this 501(c)3 organization is tax-deductible, unlike most of the others on this list, and a worthwhile low-cost way to mobilize voters. Other good sites for getting registered online include Vote.gov (a government site), Iwillvote.com (run by the Democratic National Committee/DNC), Iamavoter.com, and Vote.org. USING YOUR MONEY Donate Directly to the Harris-Walz Campaign and Democratic Party Organizations By conventional measures—offices opened, staffing in key states, and volunteers--the Harris-Walz campaign has a substantial advantage over the Trump-Vance campaign in the ground game. Winning close elections often comes down to better turnout operations. Studies suggest that a good ground game can make a 2-3 percent difference in the vote, a game-changing number in tight races. A well-run presidential campaign like Harris’s can always use money effectively. It is built on the solid Biden chassis and has brought on veterans from successful prior Democratic campaigns.[1] The Democratic National Committee (DNC) focuses on winning the presidency, running the national convention, and building a common data and tech backbone for the party, as well as supporting state party infrastructure year in and year out. Over the past several cycles under the leadership of Tom Perez, Jaime Harrison, and data expert Sam Cornale the DNC has proven its worth time and again.[2] The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) supports state legislative candidates. It is the “little engine that could” of Democratic organizations and does phenomenal below-the-radar work on unsung races. Democrats were decimated at the state and local level in 2010 and have spent the past fifteen years clawing their way back close to parity with the GOP. The DLCC has played a big part in developing the deep Democratic “bench” that was on display at the recent convention in Chicago. It can put late money to especially good use relative to its organizational peers. Support Democratic Candidates How should you donate wisely to key races that help Democrats win the House of Representatives, retain the Senate, strengthen their position in state legislatures, and strategically raise turnout in the presidential race? Giving directly to campaigns in general is especially helpful early and late in the election cycle. Incumbents facing a potentially tough race can build a war chest that scares off potentially strong opponents. Late money supports a strong ground operation. Television ads paid for with direct contributions (so-called “hard money”) also get preferential pricing and placement. Money isn’t sufficient to win races, but it is necessary. Money both follows the winners and helps challengers win. Ample funding is needed for advertising and outreach, and the media regards strong fundraising as a proxy for voter enthusiasm and potentially winning. In the most recent midterm elections, the House candidate who raised the most money won 93 percent of the time. That largely reflects the lack of competitive districts but unless a challenger can match or outraise an incumbent his or her chances are slim. Two years, two months, or two weeks out, the key to donating wisely is to have a plan for donating to the most pivotal races and a budget. (My approach is described in the note below.[3]) Unless you have a professional interest in politics, ignore and delete the thousands of fundraising e-mails and texts, many of which promise matches that generally don’t really exist, scare you with outlier polls about races that are either not close or not winnable, and spend lots of the money you donate on consultants and other overhead. Support Democratic House Candidates These top twenty-one House picks, based on my criteria and in order of importance, are running in the closest and most pivotal races. Small contributions will truly mean a lot. (Democratic incumbents are in italics.) The final FEC reporting deadline is on 9/30: contributing before then will make the most difference. NE-02 Tony Vargas NC-01 Donald Davis PA-07 Susan Wild AZ-01 Amish Shah AZ-06 Kirsten Engel MI-07 Curtis Hertel MI-08 Kristen McDonald Rivet CA-13 Adam Gray CA-22 Rudy Salas CA-27 George Whitesides CA-41 Will Rollins CA-45 Derek Tran CA-47 David Min NY-04 Laura Gillen NY-17 Mondaire Jones NY-19 Josh Riley NJ-07 Susan Altman OH-13 Emilia Sykes NM-02 Gabe Vasquez CO-08 Yadira Caraveo WA-03 Marie Gluesenkamp Perez Support Democratic Senate Candidates On paper, this is the worst map for Democrats in generations. Democrats are defending twenty-three seats and the GOP just eleven, with at least seven highly competitive races involving only Democratic incumbents. With a Republican pickup of Senator Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia a virtual certainty, the chamber will be tied 50-50 between the GOP and Democrats (including those who identify as independents and caucus with the Dems). Recent polling since Vice President Harris moved to the top of the ticket shows there is now a slim chance that the Democrats can run the table in the competitive races. There is even a glimmer of hope that the party can compete in several races that the GOP thought it had sewn up. Democrats will most likely have to pull an upset in one of those races to hold the Senate but this is looking like less of an extreme long shot. Holding the Senate would make an enormous difference to confirming judges and moving voting rights and climate change legislation. Please give generously, in this order, to: Elissa Slotkin (Michigan), Jon Tester (Montana), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Ruben Gallego (Arizona), and Angela Alsobrooks (Maryland).[4] Give to Targeted State and Local Races Good local candidates in state races are worth supporting in their own right. A number of these races also overlap with key presidential swing districts and giving to local candidates strategically can boost turnout up and down the ticket. Swing Left maps of target races are a good resource for identifying these opportunities and your own research can yield more. Here are a few state-level swing state candidates who could use your support: there are many others: Nicole Ruscitto PA Senate District 37 Anand Patel PA House District 18 Angela Girol PA House District 39 Karen Gresham AZ House District 4 Jaimie Wall WI Senate District 30 In a similar vein, the new and impressive website Oath.com generates a set of Democratic candidates who supposedly deliver the best return for the dollar, based on a variety of assumptions about polling and turnout and other factors. This follows on earlier efforts by Sam Wang and the Princeton Election Consortium to produce a bipartisan version that would deliver the most “bang for a donor buck,” a goal that the site Vote Maximizer continues to pursue. Both sites are worth a look. Give to Other First-Rate State-Level Organizations In general, give directly to campaigns and not to Political Action Committees (PACs) unless you have a very good idea of who leads the organization, what it does, and where your money is going. Many of the texts that fill your phone come from PACs of varying quality. The data scientist and health care expert Charles Gaba does a masterful job of dissecting here, for one PAC, where your money goes. (Gaba, incidentally, maintains the very good Blue24.org website, a handy donor-supported aggregator that lets you give easily to Democratic candidates up and down the ballot) I do recommend a few state-focused organizations, including PACs, that do exceptional work year in and year out: American Bridge is headed by Cecile Richards, the daughter of former Texas governor Ann Richards; it does data-rich and focused outreach to targeted groups of voters in swing states; Hope Springs From Field does year-round canvassing in a thorough and professional way. Its reports are an excellent gauge of voter sentiment in the field. Mecklenburg Democrats (MeckDems). There is a quite plausible scenario, should Harris/ Walz carry North Carolina for Democrats for the first time since Barack Obama in 2008, that Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, would be the equivalent of Fulton County, Georgia, in 2020—a city and surrounding region in which increasing turnout of Democratic-leaning voters can be the tipping point for the state; New Pennsylvania Project; Carolina Democracy; WisDems. Spare a Few Dollars for Voter and Election Protection I hope you will take a few minutes to view the gripping new documentary “Stopping the Steal,” which recounts in detail Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and the documentary short “The Officials,” which observes the extraordinary pressures placed on election officials who are trying to ensure a fair election in 2024. Republicans for the past twenty years have been using the undemocratic features of the U.S. election system and the country’s counter-majoritarian institutions to their advantage--especially through partisan map drawing, voter suppression, changes to election laws, and reducing the authority of officeholders when Democrats prevail. The false narrative of a stolen 2020 election has intensified these efforts. At least seventy county election officials in swing states either questioned the validity of the 2020 election results or refused to certify those results. There are great organizations dedicated to exposing and countering these anti-democratic efforts: among the best and most effective are Marc Elias’s Democracy Docket and the States United Democracy Center. USING YOUR TIME Write Letters to Voters and Other GOTV Strategies Writing letters to prospective voters through Vote Forward can move the needle on turnout. Studies suggest that letters are one of the most effective methods of communication because of the personal effort involved in writing and mailing them. October 1st is the final day to request letters or to join a Vote Forward campaign Voters of Tomorrow, Move On, and Swing Left are excellent organizations that drive turnout through texting, rallies, and on-the-ground outreach. Mobilize.us and Democrats.org alert you to rallies, events, and phone banks for volunteers in your area. Canvass in Battleground States Canvassing door-to-door in person is an important way to boost turnout in key states. It is a comparative advantage for Democrats and the absence of a robust operation in 2020, when the party observed Covid-19 restrictions, probably accounted in part for Biden and House Democrats underperforming their pre-election polling. Depending on the time, place, and party organization, canvassing can be either rewarding or tedious, but it is an important though unglamorous part of winning elections. The online Canvassing Connector maintained by the Swing Blue Alliance is a first-rate site and useful first stop for those wanting to canvass in swing states. To canvas in Montana for Senator Jon Tester, whose race may well decide Senate control, follow the link. If you want to canvas in Wisconsin, this is a helpful link to WisDems. To canvas in Nevada, especially if coming from Northern California, reach out to the WashoeDems. Had the midwestern Democratic “Blue Wall” held in 2016, the election would have been decided in Nevada, and probably by the margin in Washoe County (Reno). That scenario is very much in play again this cycle. Parting Thoughts Don’t give money to a certain loser because you detest his or her opponent. This drains resources better used elsewhere. A classic example of this was the candidacy of Marcus Flowers, who ran in 2022 against Marjorie Taylor Greene in a Georgia district that backed Trump by more than 40 points. Flowers raised almost 16 million dollars, the sixth highest total of any Congressional candidate in that cycle. He lost by 31 points. There was never the slightest chance that Flowers could win or even draw away Republican resources from other races. Because most voters are tuned out of politics, and many have never “tuned in,” don’t underestimate what a difference a few extra contacts can make. What often startles most people who follow the news and are reasonably aware of day-to-day politics is just how little attention most Americans pay to elections, politics, or government, despite the gravity of their collective decisions. Studies show that on average Americans think less than ten minutes a week about politics or government. Even that number may be a substantial exaggeration. What probably strikes you as an endless bombardment of ads and messaging may just be sufficient to get a low-propensity voter to the polls. Don’t waste any time fretting over bad polls or getting overconfident thanks to favorable ones. Individual polls have become less predictive, state level polls less reliable, and partisan pollsters increasingly skew the aggregate numbers. Polling, especially averages of polls, remains suggestive, but it depends almost entirely on assumptions about who will vote and extrapolations from tiny actual response rates. Your donations matter! Even though big money has the edge, smaller donors can still make a difference. A string of unfortunate Supreme Court decisions beginning with Buckley v. Valeo in the 1970s and cresting with Citizens United a dozen years ago have equated campaign spending with free speech and given more influence to corporations and big money. In the abstract, the money spent on individual races seems outsized. But the overall amount spent on American elections—about twenty billion in 2022—remains surprisingly low given that the stakes are now so high. Spending on U.S. elections each cycle is comparable to the global market for any mid-level consumer item, like nail polish or ketchup, and a rounding error in a twenty- trillion-dollar U.S. economy. What this means is that a determined group of smaller donors can still exert countervailing power on bigger spenders. Over time, the foundations of civic participation need to be rebuilt, starting with local media and eventually including campaign finance reform. In the interim, winning elections under the current circumstances is a must.[5] A substantial popular vote victory will take the wind out of the sails of those who want to overturn the result in favor of Donald Trump . The national popular vote is formally meaningless. But in a tight election decided for Harris by a couple of electoral votes, a real possibility, it will have a strong impact on the media narrative and individual psychology. The more emphatic a Harris win in the national vote tally, even if it comes from states that don’t “count,” the harder it will be for former President Trump and his allies to prevail if they narrowly trail in the electoral vote count. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/26/2273121/-Winning-the-2024-Elections-Doing-What-Matters-Most-in-the-Homestretch?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/