This whole Beto should give his money to other candidates is an an argument that manages to be stupid in numerous ways. First of all, if people donated money to Beto, they probably wanted him to use it on his campaign. It is wrong and self-defeating to veto your own ...
2/ supporters choices. Just as important, this narrative is premised on the idea that there's a fixed pool of donations. That's largely not true. There's a high level of elasticity in small dollar political giving. If you give $25 or $50 to Beto, it's probably not ...
3/ that $20 of those bucks were dollars you were otherwise going to give to Heitkamp or Manchin. The vast majority of his donors realize he's in a very uphill battle and are inspired by his candidacy, want to fuel it and want to be part of it by contributing. Even ...
4/ if he doesn't win, the money isn't being wasted. Texas is trending in a more purple direction, if it might take a lot of time to get there. They're building political infrastructure, cohorts of activists and organizers etc. There's also little doubt that even if he comes up...
5/ short he will add margins for House candidates who may win on his coattails even if he loses. In any case, in an environment like this donations are largely driven by the excitement candidates generate rather than a fixed supply of money. There's no real way to prove this ...
6/ but I think it's highly likely that Beto is simply expanding the pie of overall giving than bogarting scarce dollars that might be going to others. This narrative is being driven by a tacit conspiracy of Democratic sad sacks and Republican concern trolls. Enough.
