I’m getting ready to gear up for our main fundraising drive of the year. We’ve raised a little over 150K this cycle so far, dating back to March 2017. Our biggest gifts went to Conor Lamb and Doug Jones.
How many candidates do you want to support? I’d like to do at least 50 but maybe more like 100. Let me know how many you think is appropriate. Is everyone ok with doing a batch like we have in the past, rather than one candidate at a time? I don’t think I have time this fall to go candidate by candidate, because that involves creating a lot of thermometers. Should we just do House or do Senate too? I’m going to work hard to find a way to things so that you don’t end up on a million mailing lists.
I think the kind of fundraising we are doing is important. If the three million most dedicated Democrats in the country give $500 a piece, they’d completely swamp the Galtians’ money and our democracy would be reclaimed.
TaMara (HFG)
We have a real long shot in my congressional district to unseat the current GOP nightmare. You’ve motivated me to do a bit of research and see how viable she is as a candidate. We have several strong candidates running in other Colorado GOP strongholds – I know Mike Coffman has suddenly had fire lit under him, so I’m guessing Dem Jason Crow is polling well.
Litlebritdifrnt
Just a quick FYI. Me and DH are going up to Glagow tomorrow to attend his Immigration Interview type interrogation on Monday. From there we are going to Edinburgh where we are going to the Zoo and the Tattoo on the evening of the 21st. My internet access is probably going to be spotty until we get back on the 22nd so just wanted to alert everyone. We should come back with joyous news or really pissed off that my government is treating me, a vet, so shoddily. Be prepared)
dmsilev
Batch would probably be good, and my sense would be to focus on what I’ll call second-tier House races. The ones that look like an uphill battle in a normal year, but since this isn’t normal a bit of extra money might be of bigger marginal help than it would be in the races that are highlighted nationally. As far as the mailing lists goes, at least for me that ship has already sailed so adding a few more won’t really matter.
Dnfree
I would say the House first unless there are Senate races we could make a difference in. And avoiding the constant emails (and even snail mail, which wastes money) would be great.
zhena gogolia
I’m supporting Jahana Hayes in CT and Antonio Delgado in NY.
Ruckus
I’d say house and senate separately. That’s just two and you could add one or three that need help as necessary. Besides we need to show support across the board. And if you do separate, some candidates are not going to do as well, they aren’t left enough, or are too left or whatever. We the people need friends in office, they don’t have to be best friends, just not enemies.
WaterGirl
@Dnfree: If we do a group thing and your donation is split, say, between 10 candidates, I think that gets you on 10 different candidate’s email lists.
Doug, to answer your question…
I don’t have a lot of disposable income this year, so when I give I kind of have to give up something else. That being the base, I am more moved to do that when it’s someone like Beto or Sherrod Brown. (just two examples) Maybe we could have a top 10 Senate and a top 10 House, and those people could get their own. And then ALSO have a couple of group ones like you have suggested – one for the house and one for the senate. My two cents.
HeleninEire
@Litlebritdifrnt: Wait, what? You have brought us into the end of the story. Who is DH and why does he need an immigration hearing?
Assuming he is your partner. Good luck to both of you.
But please do tell.
WaterGirl
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Wishing you a great outcome.
I am absolutely livid when I read/hear about the spouse of a vet being deported here in the states. It’s beyond a big fuck you to people who have put their lives on the line for their country.
Another Scott
The $50,000 thermometer for the 238 (or whatever) House candidates was a good effort, but I would occasionally get mailed thank-you letters for my “$1” donation. Not very cost effective. ;-)
Is there a quick way to figure out how many marginal races are within, say, 3% of the “magic” “Trump won by 10%” level? Or something similar? If there’s going to be a wave, then we need to win the marginal seats that are close to the +10% that Democrats seem to be reaching this cycle. The big races will have plenty of money – it’s the marginal races where every dollar can make a difference.
I want us helping marginal Senate races (meaning the Twb10% races), also too. There’s Gary Trauner in Wyoming (a Juicer – at least at one time, IIRC), ferinstance.
Lots of people posting here don’t like the DCCC and DSCC and DLCC but I think they’re important and I give to them semi-regularly, also too. We need every seat, at every level of government, that we can get.
Thanks for doing this, Doug!
Cheers,
Scott.
MobileForkbeard
@HeleninEire: Usually DH is “dear hubby”, so probably the partner. :)
Litlebritdifrnt
@HeleninEire: He is my husband and he is an American Citizen who is applying to stay in the UK as my spouse. There are no guarantees, recently the American wife of a UK “Top Gun” pilot was denied entry for whatever reason and the resulting public outcry forced the government to change course. I have all my t’s crossed and all my i’s dotted and have twice the documents they have asked for but who knows what they will decide. I can tell you however that if they deny his application all hell is going to break loose.
randy khan
The House is such a target-rich environment that I think it would be hard to pick out a reasonable number of races, so I’d support one big thermometer, so to speak, for that.
The Senate really is a limited number of races that need a boost, and I’m hopeful that some of them will become safe as we get closer. Also, I can imagine that people might want to pick and choose more there, anyway. So I’d say go for a top 5 or top whatever and do individual ones for each of them.
This is timely for me, as my wife and I are in the process of picking the races where we want to donate. We are of course going to donate to Virginia Dem House candidates, and already donated to Sherrod Brown because we have a personal connection to his family, but there probably are other places where we will send some money, so this will help us figure it out.
Juice Box
My local race is a good one. HRC won the district by about 10 IIRC and Mike Levin is running to replace the execrable Darrell Issa, man of many double letters and not much else, so I suspect that Levin will beat the local Trumpista.
dnfree
@WaterGirl: Exactly. And apparently sometimes we have done more than that, because I’m on a lot of email lists. I wouldn’t mind occasional updates, but there are near-daily pleas for more money, or excited announcements of this or that game-changing event, or whatever. I have unsubscribed from a few of them but not all.
schrodingers_cat
Met with a write-in candidate for the state senate, Jo Comerford, at my neighbor’s house this morning. Write-in because the incumbent senator Rosenberg had to resign and there is only one official challenger on the ballot. There are three other write-in candidates. Ds have good snacks, came home with cakes and cookies.
KBS
I do appreciate the batch donate buttons. I’m going to have to set up a separate email address so the spam doesn’t continue to clog my regular email though! Thanks so much for making it easy to donate.
Betty Cracker
Florida 16th isn’t on anyone’s radar. The incumbent, Vern Buchanan, is a rich wingnut knob who won by 20 points in 2016. It’s a very red district. Katherine Harris country — remember that nightmare from 2000? Anyhoo, several factors make me think we have a shot this year:
1) Buchanan has held one town hall since Trump got elected, and it was flooded with angry constituents, including me. Buchanan was taken aback! Since then, he has all but scrubbed the word “Republican” from his campaign lit, describing himself as “independent” and “bipartisan,” which is a big fat lie — his 538.com Trump score is 96.5%. He also caught a lot of bad local press by buying a fucking yacht on the same day he voted for the Trump tax bill. Stupid!
2) Buchanan’s son James ran for the Florida statehouse in a special election in February. Papa Vern pulled out all the stops with local influence, arranged to have pallets of money dropped on his son’s campaign, and he parachuted in several Trumpkins, including Corey Lewandowski, for a rally. Buchanan the Younger was expected to win big in that reliably red district, but instead, he got hammered by the Democrat!
Anyhoo, there are two Dems running to oppose Buchanan, Jan Schneider and David Shapiro. Schneider has been running for something or another for ages, winning the Democratic primary, then losing to the Republican in the general. She’s the one who lost to Buchanan by 20 points last time. I don’t blame her, really — she lives in a red district. Shapiro is a first-time candidate.
Both make lots of noises about “the establishment” and bipartisanship, which you kinda have to do in this district. I’m leaning toward supporting Shapiro this time. I like Schneider, but she’s not very good at retail politics, IMO. Her ads are painfully bad. Shapiro’s aren’t that much better, TBH, but he seems smoother. Obviously, I’ll donate and vote for whichever Democrat wins. It’s a long shot, but this could be the year!
e julius drivingstorm
If 3 million democrats donate 1.5 billion, would that be enough to buy the president’s resignation? Let him pardon his cronies and himself and then just go away. Start a Gofundme page. Count me in.
maeve
I’m in a dilemma in my state (Alaska) – the current governor is an independent – his Lt. Governor was the Dem candidate but he withdrew and they formed an independent ticket – which won by combining forces agaist the running then current goveror (formerly the Lt. Governor but the governor in place because Sarah Palin quit.. Now our former senator (Begich) is running as a democrat. Begich won as senator in 2008 (Stevens was under indictment at the time but the case was lost – the prosecution really overstepped and the things he was accussed of were penny ante for Alaska politics.) but then lost in 2014 to Dan Sullivan (strongly supported by Koch brothers)
So – the current governor did good things – like expanding Medicaid and holding the line on other things – also don’t agree with him on other things. but I’m actually kind of pissed that Begich is running so we’ll get the split the vote thing again …
raven
Stacy Abrams
gene108
Andy Kim looking to unseat Tom MacArthur, in my district NJ-3, is tied in early polling.
MacArthur, a former insurance company CEO, is independently wealthy. He sunk $5 million of his own money to win the seat in 2014.
MacArtgur and a Republican aligned PAC have decided to go negative early, with what amounts to outright lies about Andy.
Basically, Andy can’t get into a spending war with MacArthur. Andy’s not taking any corporate or PAC money.
I went to a meat and greet in February. He is a former mid-level national security advisor, who worked in the Bush and Obama administrations. He was either fired or quit, can’t remember which, as soon as Trump rolled in.
His fund raising has kept pace with MacArthur, but a few jackal bucks would help our cause.
Lapassionara
I will send you some info on Cort VanOstran, dem nominee running against the odious Ann Wagner in MO 2. She is never going to do anything but what she is told by the Republican leadership, so she is not really representing the people in her district. I would like to see some money come his way.
EL
I definitely prefer a batch at a time, and 50, 75, 100 doesn’t matter. However many you think we can affect.
Catherine D.
I’m worried in NY that Dems won’t realize the primary is on Thursday Sep 13 instead of Tuesday (moved for Rosh Hoshanah/Sep 11).
MazeDancer
If you can come up with a way to keep our names off mailing lists, I’ll give more. Really, maybe use evil dark money c!oaking laws to hide us.
But guessing no way will be found.
It’s the selling of the lists that is so irritating. People and groups in which you have no interest clogging your inbox. Yes, they’re all worthy causes, I’m sure. But the relentlessness can be daunting.
Starfish
@TaMara (HFG): I got to meet her. She seemed very enthusiastic and was trying to shake all the hands.
NotoriousJRT
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Best of luck!!
NotoriousJRT
I would prefer to keep it simple and focused on races for which there is an actual shot at flipping R to D or risk of losing the other way. If I want to bet on a longish shot, I will do it on my own. Thanks for doing this.
Ruckus
@MazeDancer:
If they are relentless and I’m not interested I tell them so and unsubscribe. It doesn’t always work but it does often enough that they generally don’t bother me any more.
If they are truly obnoxious, like the asshole republican running for gov of CA I give them my best navy language school editorial. IOW swearing not fit even for BJ. Had to do this twice with the above mentioned candidate and then once with his wife who was crying about his treatment by people who should have been overjoyed at his desire to fuck us by being our governor. Like me. Never heard from her again. Bet my name is on a list somewhere though. I’ll enjoy that with pride.
ETA I got an email supposedly from someone today that told me I’m a winner in a UK lottery put on by Coke. I didn’t even have to look it up to see that it’s a scam, the prize I’d won is 1,250,000 pounds. Notice the comas instead of periods to separate the numbers. Very basic mistake.
Chetan Murthy
@MazeDancer: I don’t know if this’ll help, but I tend to use a “+” extension for political contributions. E.g., “[email protected]”. Most places will accept and use this address verbatim, and it will arrive at “[email protected]”. So you can then use a filter rule to sort ’em into a special folder that you check every week or whatever.
Been doing it for a long time. Some places (I think, Moveon) don’t accept “+” extensions, which is troublesome. But most places do.
Kathleen
@Another Scott: Thank you so much for donating to Aftab Purval in Ohio’s 1st when I blurbed about him in comments a few months ago.
I’m requesting that he be included in the pool. Here’s an article from late July which talks about him giving Chabot a run for his money in a district designed for Rethuglicans:
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/24/pureval-has-gained-chabot-minds-some-experts-one-sees-race-toss-up/825488002/
Here’s an article about Obama’s endorsement:
https://www.firstpost.com/world/barack-obama-endorses-indian-tibetan-democrat-aftab-pureval-for-november-congressional-polls-4874341.html
MazeDancer
@Chetan Murthy:
@Ruckus:
Thanks for tips!
Also, think I’m going to relegate political contributions to 4th level email that I only use for obscure things this cycle.
Mary G
Swing Left is a good catchall that gives to Democratic candidates without creating a mass of new emails, although when they get too out of control, it’s easy to unsubscribe. Republicans are carpet bombing Harley Rouda (Dana Rohrabacher’s opponent) with negative ads 24/7 – I wonder if the Russians have demanded re-election or they’ll release some of the RNC emails they’re sitting on, so I’ve started donating to him.
Robert Wright
The post title is on point! Made me chuckle.