Why give to the State Slate? Let me explain it by picking a district we're supporting somewhat at random. For this example I've chosen HD-91, which covers Muscatine, Iowa. This is a small city west of Davenport, where the westbound Mississippi river decides to turn south. 
Muscatine is currently represented in the Iowa house by Republican Gary Carlson, a corporate executive and former head of the Muscatine Chamber of Commerce, first elected in 2014.
In 2018, Carlson attracted a serious Democratic opponent. Liegois is a small business owner who served as Solid Waste Manager for the city. She grew up in Muscatine, attended Muscatine Community College, and in every respect is the kind of local candidate you want to see run
In the November election, Carlson narrowly beat Liegois, defeating her by 789 votes. She did well in Muscatine proper, but he got more votes outside the city limits, and in the end prevailed in this tiny election. Iowa Republicans kept their state house majority.
If you look at 2018 fundraising numbers (which are reported in a kind of clunky way in Iowa; I hope I got this right), Carlson raised almost four times as much money as Liegois for this race. She never had more than nine grand cash on hand, he was always flush.
The question we're trying to answer this year is—what if candidates like Liegois could run at financial parity with Republican incumbents, on an even playing field? I don't know Muscatine politics, or the two candidates' strengths and weaknesses. But it seems worth exploring.
In Iowa, we only need to win four seats to give the state a Democratic house, breaking the stranglehold of the Republican Party on state politics. In state after state, the R/D disparity in *local* fundraising is stark. In Florida, it's nearly 6:1 in favor of Republicans!
In HD-91 this year, a different Democrat is running against Carlson. Kelcey Brackett is a Muscatine City Councilman and also seems like a great fellow. You can read about him here: muscatinejournal.com/muscatine/news…
The premise of the State Slate is—what if we gave Brackett and other candidates like him a fundraising boost, so he could campaign at parity with his opponent, and not worry about finding political donors in Muscatine? Maybe he's great at politics, but awful at asking for money!
In a year when total spending on the Presidential campaigns and the marquee Senate races will be in the billions, I hope you'll agree that moving a few thousand bucks into pivotal state races is a good thing to try. Please help us help these candidates! secure.actblue.com/donate/state_s…
I know that we all have fantasies of beating Mitch McConnell or kicking Lindsey Graham out of the Senate, but if you have a political dollar to spend and really want to help working-class Americans, there's no better way to spend it than helping break Republican state majorities
