A little bit of positive info

A little bit of positive info

by digby

I knew the Dems were massively outraising the Republicans with individual donors. What I didn't know was how that was significant in terms of voting:

Really interested to see this mapped out for outside spending/fundraising too. Like, in the special elections the D candidates often massively outraised the R, but still got outspent by IEs.
— Will Jordan (@williamjordann) October 19, 2018


Total spending isn’t predictive of election outcomes. Individual contributions are. Why? Indiv contribs probably a proxy for enthusiasm, support for challengers, etc. So I think I take the opposite position on seeing IEs by district
— G. Elliott Morris📈🤷‍♂️ (@gelliottmorris) October 19, 2018


There's a ton of dark money floating around in this race on both sides. And I've always been a bit of a skeptic about how much money really makes the difference after a certain point in a time when people skip through ads and online propaganda is pretty cheap. But individual donations being a proxy for enthusiasm makes sense to me. I just hope it's localized enough that it is reflective of voters in swing and red districts and not just national enthusiasm in blue states.

From what I have seen, there are a lot of local Democratic donors. Beto O'Rourke reportedly got 70% pf his donations from Texas. So hopefully this will bear out in individual races around the country.

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