While I don’t have the personal wealth to make a huge dent in any political campaign, I do feel the personal need to contribute … something … to assist the Democrats in taking control of … something. Or, more accurately from my own perspective, to help wrest control of any section of the federal government away from the Republicans.
I will undoubtedly contribute to the two federal candidates for whom I can also vote in November. These include Beto O’Roarke (D) in the Texas Senate race against Ted Cruz (R) & and M.J. Hegar (D) in the TX-31 House race against John Carter (R). I really like both of the Democratic nominees. I also know that neither has a reasonable chance of actually being elected.
Which brings me to my point for this particular blog entry.
I will continue to hold good thoughts about the Democrats taking control of the Senate in 2018. Miracles do indeed happen. However, since the 2018 Senate map is enormously favorable to the GOP, I’m not willing to throw money at Senate races beyond a token donation in my home state. (I may expand on this thought in a future blog entry.)
The House of Representatives, however, is quite another matter. The Democrats have a real opportunity to take control. While it’s very early in the cycle, some advance focus and solid organization — tweaked as necessary as things progress — can make a takeover of the House a reality. Unfortunately, focus and organization aren’t exactly hallmarks of the Democratic Party. They will fight among themselves; they will spend tons of money against candidates they can’t beat; they will ignore races they can win; they will forget to defend the Democratic seats that are in-play; they will apply position litmus tests that have absolutely nothing to do with winning in a given Congressional district. Dandy.
Thus, in my copious spare time, I decided to apply the tools of my day job (data analytics) to take a data-centric approach to determining where the Democrats should best focus their funds and efforts. It started as a simple effort, but turned complex very quickly. The good news is that I’m a data geek and I found this endlessly interesting. I’d really like to believe that someone is being paid a ton of money by the DCCC to do a similar but much more detailed analysis than I can muster in my spare time with publicly available data. I’d also really like a pony. Just sayin’.
I started by defining the goal: The Democrats need to flip a net total of 24 seats in 2018 to take control of the House. Note that this includes protecting any (D) seats that are in play in addition to flipping (R) seats. Nothing else matters.
Next, we need data. For this, I cheated a bit – using several publicly available sources that themselves leverage other sources. In the tradition of FiveThirtyEight, I’m not only taking a poll of polls, I’m essentially taking a poll of polls of polls. My sources include recent data from the Cook Political Report, the Economist, Real Clear Politics, Daily Kos, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and the Crosstab.
For the analysis, I determine the current probability of a general election win and then rank the races based on where focus and funds could apparently do the most good. While my formula is complex, it essentially ranks the races as follows:
- Lean D: Targeting races where the Democrat is already slightly ahead.
- Toss-up: Targeting races that are the most competitive.
- Lean R: Targeting races where the Democrat is only slightly behind.
- Likely D: Targeting races where the Democrat is likely, but not guaranteed, to win.
- Likely R: Targeting races where the Democrat is likely, but not guaranteed, to lose.
- Safe R/D: Targeting races for no good reason whatsoever.
I also track tertiary qualifiers for each Democratic candidate, which I use only to order races that are equal based on the above analysis. These criteria are:
- Favored by the House Majority PAC. [Which means money.]
- Favored by the Red to Blue initiative of the DCCC. [Which means money.]
- Military veteran. [Just because.]
- Female. [Just because.]
- Legislative/political experience. [Experience is NOT a bad thing.]
- Running against a jackass. [Hey, it’s my analysis.]
Out of 435 total House races, I identified only 58 that were “interesting” along at least some axis. Of those 58, I identified 20 races to seriously target – 2 (D) seats that need to be defended and 18 (R) seats that should be targeted to flip. The primaries haven’t yet completed in 3 of these races, but all of the races currently Lean D or are Toss-Ups. Outside of the 20 targeted races, I identified an additional eight seats that seem likely to flip from (R) to (D) with little to no assistance. There are no unassisted (D) to (R) seats expected in 2018.
Thus, according to my analysis, if the Democrats win all of the 20 targeted House races plus the 8 unassisted races, they should end up with a razor-thin 2-vote majority in the House. I’d obviously like a larger margin and I’d really like to suggest contributing to more races. If I had the time, I would love to add consideration of campaign financials to determine where additional donations might have the most impact. I’d also like to consider up/down ticket races, district turnout history, voter registrations by party, and a number of other criteria. And, again, I’d really like that pony. ‘Cause, you know, if wishes were horses, then bloggers would ride. Or something like that.
Anyway, here’s my Top 20:
FYI, the eight seats that, at the moment, look to flip more-or-less on their own are: PA-06, NV-04. FL-27, CA-49, VA-10, AZ-02, NJ-02, & PA-07.
So. Will I now contribute to all 20 campaigns? I might. ActBlue Express lets you set up a single account to fairly easily donate to multiple candidates – including everyone on my list. While it still requires some work, the good news is that over 98% of money contributed via ActBlue goes directly to the campaigns. I will wait until the primaries are complete to contribute to the TBD races. While I believe that early contributions are more valuable than late contributions, I will also reserve some money for later in the cycle after a final round of analysis.
My funds may be limited, but I can at least say I tried.