In 2020, a friend of mine (Lyla) and Sarah I set up a fundraiser for the election. Part of that was giving people a guide of where to give. We raised $84,123 to the following recipients. Now, I’m giving my 2024 guide of how to donate for all the elections. It’s written as a memo because it originally was one! I sent it to a friend of mine who tithes 10% of their income to good works.
A memo for friends.
This is about how to spend money wisely. Here’s how we can think about it:
- The less sexy the race, (the farther away from federal/presidential), the higher the impact and the higher the relative impact
- Control of states is incredibly important
- State Supreme Courts are unsexy, powerful, not financed well
- While House races are high up (aka sexy and maybe relatively well funded), control of the House is very important to protect america in case Trump wins (and probably takes the Senate)
- While targeting money well is helpful, it’s easy to over-concern yourself with it. Donate directly to candidates and you’ll generally be fine.
- Due to how some laws work, it’s better bang-for-the-buck to donate directly to candidates than to PACs
Pursuant to that, I mostly followed the advice of operative types — the same sort of people who gave Matt Yglesias the advice he’s giving here, but updated: https://www.slowboring.com/p/how-to-make-a-difference-in-the-2024
I suggest splitting your money in the following ways, in descending order of importance:
- State Supreme Court races
- AZ County Recorder
- Key state legislature races
- (Bonus): US House
State Supreme Court races are the ones I’m most excited by. Huge important races that might swing control, often underfunded and looked over.
The AZ Maricopa county recorder oversees elections for (by far) biggest county in Arizona — a key state and one where election deniers are particularly fierce
These state Leg races might swing control of key chambers.
Given ~10k, here’s how I would split it:
- $1580 (the maximum) for two Montana state supreme court races.
- $4500 split 6 ways for six other state supreme court races.
- $500 for Maricopa County Recorder
- $3500 split 8 ways for 8 state leg races
That comes out to $10,080.
Alternative/bonus: If you want to shift more towards the urgent task of preventing unified Republican control of government eroding our democracy — I suggest the US House. That’s also in the appendix.
Happy to answer questions.
APPENDIX — direct links:
- State Supreme Courts
- Montana:
- $790 (the legal maximum) each to:
- Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina:
- $4500 split six ways:
- https://secure.actblue.com/donate/statesupremecourt
- Montana:
- AZ maricopa county recorder:
- $500 to Tim Stringham: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/stringhamforarizona-1
- State Legislatures:
- $3500 split 8 ways:
- https://app.oath.vote/donate?p=tspgs-hi
APPENDIX 2 — Bonus (house candidates):
House Candidates:
Matt Yglesias’s favorites
- Jared Golden: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/jgme-d2d-gs
- Yadira Caravezo: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/yadira-caraveo-for-co08
- Don Davis: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dd-web
- Gabe Vasquez: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/gabe-vasquez
- Adam Gray:
- Curtis Hertel Jr:
- Kristen McDonald Rivet
- Janelle Bynum
Sahar’s bonus favorite: Marie Gluesenkamp Perez: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mgp-up-website