Donate With Your Head, Not Your Heart

Amy McGrath (D-KY)

Colin Allred's entrance into the Texas Senate race this past week has already inspired one article on the blog, but his fundraising deserves another.  In the first 36 hours of his campaign, Allred raised $2 million in his quest to defeat two-term incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R).  This isn't entirely surprising.  Cruz, due to his 2016 presidential run, is one of the most well-known members of the US Senate, and given his position as being ultra-conservative and one of the faces of the Republican Party, Democratic grassroots appear to be very keen on the prospect of beating him.  As we move into the 2024 elections, though, I think it's worth asking the question around fundraising strategically & fundraising with your heart, and how that can come at a very dear price.

In 2020, Democrats really stepped up in the weeks leading to the election of Joe Biden to become the 46th President, and not just by donating to the Biden campaign.  Senate and House campaigns saw record sums of money, and in some cases, this ended up being kind of a waste.  Amy McGrath raised an astounding $95 million in her Kentucky race against Mitch McConnell, while in South Carolina Jaime Harrison would raise an even more eye-popping $130 million.  Other candidates would raise similarly-large sums, but these two stand out because, well, this was basically money the party burned on vanity runs.  McGrath would lose her race by almost 20-points and Harrison would lose by 10-points.  In both cases, $200 million essentially bought them nothing, as McGrath only outdid Joe Biden by 2-points while Harrison outdid him by less than one.  Democrats actually lost a House seat South Carolina, so it didn't even get them coattails.  $200 million just paid for a lot of ad revenue that didn't help the Democrats make gains or bet on a race they ever had a shot of winning.

Both sides of the aisle do this, but given the Democratic Party's reliance on small-dollar donors, they need to be more careful about putting their cash into races that they have no chance of winning since you can only screw over small dollar investors so often before they stop showing up.  Part of why this happened, of course, was that the two Republicans in these races are Mitch McConnell & Lindsey Graham, are famously despised by the left, and both make for easy grifts for Democrats running against them who know they have no chance of winning.  2020 was not the first time this happened, but it was a solid reminder-you cannot outspend the demographics of your state.  Money can matter, and frequently it does, but it only matters if you're trying to buy a couple of points.  If you need more than that...you need stronger skills or the national environment to change in order for that to occur.

This sort of wasted money can have real-life effects.  In 2022, Marcus Flowers (who was running against Marjorie Taylor Greene, another Democratic Party nemesis whose opponents can basically fundraise solely against her), raised $16 million, but still lost by 30-points in the very red 14th district.  Flowers, outperformed your average Democrat by about 6-points, but when you're losing by that kind of margin, you're hardly helping the cause.  For comparison's sake, in five of the House races Republicans won by less than 3-points (Adam Frisch in CO-3, Adam Gray in CA-13, Carl Marlinga in MI-10, Kirsten Engel in AZ-6, and Tony Vargas in NE-2), the Democrats were out-raised by the Republicans.  Give that $16 million to these five candidates, and they have a considerably stronger ground game and may well make up the margin.  And, lest we forget, if these five Democrats win...Nancy Pelosi is currently the Speaker of the House.  The lesson here is simple-do not waste money on races we can't win, because that money ends up being very valuable in other races that get lost in the wake of a McGrath/Harrison/Flowers candidacy.

So the question is-how can you tell where to spend your money.  For the Senate, it's easy.  Even this far out, the Democrats clearly have two incumbents that are going to be important for the majority math (Sherrod Brown & Jon Tester) in red states, and it's obvious that Ruben Gallego (AZ) is going to be in a tight race in Arizona.  Historically the states hosting races featuring Jacky Rosen (NV), Bob Casey (PA), Elissa Slotkin (MI), & Tammy Baldwin (WI) are close contests, so early money is critical there even if it's not clear the Republicans will be able to make all four contests into proper races (at the very least, these four having strong turnout helps Biden win states that are vital on a presidential level, so the money isn't going to be wasted).  And Allred and the eventual nominee in Florida (provided they're a quality candidate like Stephanie Murphy) are underdogs with a shot to win if Biden/Trump goes in a lopsided direction to the Democrats.  It's not always about winning (I don't chide, for example, people donating to Theresa Greenfield or Sara Gideon in 2020 even though she ended up underwhelming at the ballot box because it was obvious that was a plausible seat), but about making early bets.

And that's honestly it.  Even though Democrats may want to beat people like Josh Hawley or Marsha Blackburn, there's no realistic path to do so, and they'd be better off skipping those races entirely.  And no other Democrat, including liberal lions like Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders, needs your money to get another term unless a late-breaking scandal occurs.  I purposefully left Joe Manchin off of the list not because I don't like him, but because I don't think he can win.  We saw in 2020 what happened with Doug Jones, who took $30 million (3x that of Tommy Tuberville) and still lost by double digits.  Manchin's not winning, we should go after the nine seats I just mentioned and try to get the 7 wins we need to maintain the Senate.

For the House, it's harder, and part of that is because we don't know all of the candidates yet (high-quality House candidates frequently will show up in the back-half of the year whereas that's rarer for eventual Senators).  A good rule of thumb-unless redistricting happens (specifically in North Carolina & Ohio), any Democratic incumbent in a district that went for Biden by less-than 3-points or went for Trump is worth your money.  Same for any challenger in a district that went for Biden by more than 2-points (think NY-3, OR-5, AZ-6, & CA-22) as that is one that we'll heavily target.  In terms of races to avoid, any district that went went for Trump by more than 5-points (save for something weird like Montana-1 or Missouri-2) is probably out of reach, and I will caution-I don't think Colorado-3, even with the tightness of 2022, is on the table.  Rep. Lauren Boebert is definitely vulnerable in a wave election for the Democrats or a low-turnout election (i.e. 2026), but in a presidential race, I think a lack of ticket-splitting in this district will stop her from losing, even if the seat was very close in 2022.