Thread by @maggiekb1

When should you donate money to a political candidate? Last year, I did a story on what social science can tell us about how $$ affect election outcomes. fivethirtyeight.com/features/money…

And I have a few criteria I came away with from that ...

1. Donate during the primaries. Your money matters more. In fact, by the time we hit the general the outcomes are determined so much by partisanship and gerrymandering that a LOT of politicians are probably raising/spending because of inertia more than usefulness to outcome.

2. Donate to people you dig, but who are not incumbents and have no name recognition. That's one of the spots where $ and advertising seem to actually matter to outcomes.

3. Likewise, donate to non-partisan campaigns that matter to you -- your $ makes a hell of a lot more of a difference there.

4. Don't donate to incumbents whose district lines basically ensure they will win even if they were to take a dump in the middle of the street. There are lots of those people raising and spending MILLIONS in races against non-entities who've literally raised $0.

Yeah, you're right, that fact IS mind-blowingly stupid and frustrating. Maybe give your money to the Clean Water Fund or something, instead, idk. cleanwaterfund.org

5. If you don't donate during a primary, donate towards end of the general. Ads are the thing most $$ get spent on. Research, however, shows they don't actually work that well, in terms of influencing votes, because the effect wears off real damn fast. So fund last-minute ads?

Finally, here's the biggest thing to remember: Money is a predictor of who wins an election. The person who raises the most usually wins. BUT money is probably not the cause of the win most of the time. It's a proxy/signal for other stuff that's happening.