Democracy Moneyball, continued...

Make your efforts more effective by a factor of a hundred or more. Part 2: The U.S. House

This is the second in a three-part introduction to the concept of Democracy Moneyball.

Part 1: the Senate. Part 2: the House. Part 3: state-level races and the preservation of democracy in 2024.

Today in the Princeton Election Consortium poll tracker, Democrats and Republicans appear to each be within 1 percentage point of the votes they need for control of the U.S. House in 2023. Things are right on a knife edge, as has been the case for the last two months, post-Dobbs.

The House: on a knife edge

A second, independent predictor is special elections. This year’s special elections are slightly more favorable to Democrats than opinion polls. But note the red “strike zone” at the right of the graph. The House really could go either way.

Today’s column focuses on how to optimize your efforts for supporting House candidates. There are dozens of close races, making it hard to narrow down to a few. To reduce the number of options, I will point out places where the districts coincide with key Senate and state-level races. In that way your efforts will do double work.

I am purposely taking a nerdy, quantitative route. My view is that you should work with both your heart and your head. But letting your heart be in charge wastes your resources - and feeds polarization.

Small-dollar donations shouldn’t come from the heart

This week Tim Miller wrote an opinion piece decrying the role of small donations in making politics worse. There is research evidence that small donors, driven by passion, can pull recipients in a more sharply partisan direction. Miller points out the example of South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson, who heckled President Obama during his State of the Union address, and was rewarded by $1 million in donations. Episodes like this suggest that donors can be driven by passions, rewarding the worst partisanship.

Although donors can shape the tone, their efforts have little practical effect. This happens when their preferred candidate has no possible chance of winning. A prominent example is Amy McGrath, who ran a doomed campaign against Senator Mitch McConnell several years ago. She attracted over $70 million in donations – and lost by nearly 20 points.

Races where one’s efforts matter are rare, thanks to voter polarization. In the last two decades, voters have become quite reliable in their partisan voting habits. A race usually has have an expected margin of seven points or less to have a substantial chance of going to either party. To pick one example: In October polling in Georgia, Governor Kemp (R-inc.) is ahead by a median of 5.5 points, while Senator Warnock (D-inc.) leads Herschel Walker (R) by a median of 2.0 points. Even with his overwhelming weakness as a candidate, Walker is separated from Kemp by a swing of only 7.5 points. Truly, all but a small fraction of voters are locked into their preferences.

Where are the competitive House seats?

In the U.S. House, based on past performance I expect nearly 50 seats to be competitive. This might not sound great, since it is only 11% of the chamber. But it’s better than the 33 seats (8%) that were competitive in 2012. From a strategic point of view, this means that in most races, donations are ineffective. Instead, a better use of donations is to give to close races.

Each congressional district has comparable population. In this case, the value of campaigning or advertising mostly depends on how likely it is that the district can be flipped in the direction that you want. (I am putting aside questions of differences between districts in how much it costs to campaign and advertise.)

The geographic distribution of competitive districts looks like this:

(Note that in some cases I defer to ratings in the Cook Political Report, which is better on local details than a simple partisan index.)

Wherever you live, there’s a swing district near you. That’s a great place to get out the vote.

But what about your donations?

Make your efforts doubly effective

Let me narrow this list of states down further. I will restrict the map to states where either (a) there’s a competitive Senate race, or (b) there is a competitive statewide race affecting administration of the 2024 Presidential election or local legislation (such as abortion rights or school issues). For example, secretary of state candidates in Arizona (Mark Finchem) and Nevada (Jim Marchant) are part of the election-denier slate “America First.” And abortion rights could change dramatically in Oregon.

• Senate races within 5 points: Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Nevada.

• Statewide races affecting 2024 election: Arizona, Nevada.

• Statewide races affecting local legislation: Arizona, Oregon, Wisconsin.

This leaves Arizona (CD 1, 2, 6), Nevada (CD 1, 3, 4), North Carolina (CD 1, 13), Ohio (CD 1, 9, 10, 13, 15), and Oregon (CD 4, 5, 6).

This seems like a manageable list.

If you would like to act upon this, here are ways for you to contribute.

Democrats, I give you an ActBlue site. In addition to previous recommendations, the list now includes organizations and candidates from the districts mentioned above.

Republicans, I give you a WinRed site. In addition to previous recommendations, the list now includes organizations and candidates in Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon.

Note that although I offer options to both parties, faith in elections and upholding an accurate vote count is foundational. Therefore the second list is curated to exclude election deniers. You can review the Washington Post’s interactive database of election deniers here.