wanted to share this exhaustive, passionate analysis i just received from a dear friend — one of the best people i know:
As we all know, in two weeks a small number of voters in certain parts of the U.S. will finish choosing one of two paths for us all. One is a constructive step into a challenging, even treacherous future. The other is a horror. Finding myself unable to be simply a spectator of this life-and-death sport, I have done some research to help cut through the flood of appeals to donate money to campaigns and/or participate in the massive mobilization of volunteers for Democratic candidates.
MoveOn
If you want to support one entity that covers a huge amount of ground in an election year, I recommend MoveOn, a political organization that has been active since the Clinton impeachment. It allocates its funding to a wide range of organizational activities in national and state races, including offering many kinds of volunteer activities (most done remotely). I’m confident that money given to MoveOn will be well spent.
https://front.moveon.org/
You may be familiar with other such groups worth supporting.
Senate
In the following contested Senate races, the Democratic candidates are currently believed to lead by <1 to 6 percentage points, listed in approximate order of competitiveness, with the closest at the top:
OH Brown
PA Casey
WI Baldwin
MI Slotkin
NV Rosen
AZ Gallego
MD Alsobrooks
In Montana, Jon Tester is several points behind and probably needs volunteers more than money.
The two most exciting Senate races, though, are longshot candidacies that have become competitive: Colin Allred challenging Ted Cruz in Texas and independent Dan Osborn in Nebraska. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is also making a spirited race against Rick Scott in Florida.
House of Representatives
Identifying House candidates nationally who can most benefit from support at this stage is more complicated. I have drawn from several sources the following somewhat overlapping lists. You may be especially interested in those in your state or vicinity, particularly several in California and New York that may decide the House majority.
Hopium Chronicles
I participate In Zoom meetings led by the leading Democratic strategist and organizer Simon Rosenberg, who uses this website to organize volunteer activities and accept donations to the Harris-Walz campaign, the statewide presidential campaign organizations in North Carolina and Arizona (to try to flip Trump-leaning states) as well as the “blue dot” electoral district of Nebraska, and critical congressional races.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/
Rosenberg chose 15 House seats that can most readily be flipped from R to D to win a majority. On the website one can donate to all of these candidates collectively or to any of them individually:
Amish Shah (AZ-01)
Kirsten Engel, AZ-06
Adam Gray, CA-13
Rudy Salas, CA-22
George Whitesides, CA-27
Derek Tran (CA-45)
Will Rollins, CA-41
Christina Bohannan (IA-01)
Tony Vargas, NE-02
Sue Altman, NJ-07
Laura Gillen, NY-04
Mondaire Jones, NY-17
Josh Riley, NY-19
Janelle Bynum, OR-5
Janelle Stelson (PA-10)
This is a good group to support. Vargas, Bohannan, Shah, Bynum, and Whitesides are all scientists, engineers, or physicians, along with John Mannion (NY-22), who is not on the Hopium list but is also a competitive challenger.
However, this list includes only challengers, not Democratic incumbents in equally close races.
Council for a Livable World
For decades I have donated to House and Senate candidates through the Council for a Livable World, which supports peaceful resolution of international conflicts and sensible nuclear and defense policies. This organization also provides a convenient way to donate individually to numerous candidates at once.
https://livableworld.org/meet-the-candidates/
A disadvantage of CLW is that its endorsements—based solely on the candidates’ support for its objectives, not on their likelihood of winning—include people who don’t need more help (e.g., Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse). Nonetheless, this year’s CLW-endorsed candidates include most of those in the competitive Senate races identified above and the following in competitive House races (* = incumbent):
AZ-06 K Engel
CA-09 J Harder*
CA-47 D Min
CO-03 A Frisch
MN-02 A Craig*
NY-04 L Gillen
NY-17 M Jones
NY-22 J Mannion
PA-07 S Wild*
VA-07 E Vindman
WI-03 R Cooke
Flip the States
This website is designed specifically to enable Democrats to get the most results from their political contributions. Rather than take donations, it provides links to candidates’ donation pages.
https://flipthestates.com/races/flip-the-us-house/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tnr_flip-states
For the House, Flip the States ranks the district races by their importance for achieving a Democratic majority. These (taken from a longer list) are rated most important, with "impact ratings" from 98 down to 93 (* = incumbent):
NY-22 J Mannion
CO-8 Y Caraveo*
NM-2 G Vasquez*
IA-3 L Baccam
NY-18 P Ryan*
NY-19 J Riley
CA-13 A Gray
AZ-1 A Shah
NY-17 M Jones
WA-3 M Gluesenkamp Perez*
OR-5 J Bynum
270 to Win
https://www.270towin.com/2024-house-election/
This informational website (not partisan that I can see) also identifies competitive House races, including toss-ups and some that lean D or R but without a predicted winner. These are a few candidates familiar to me (some from past campaigns) who do not appear on the above lists (* = incumbent):
AK M Peltola*
ME-2 J Golden*
MT-1 M Tranel
OH-9 M Kaptur*