911: People like feeling smart

And we need people to be smarter!

“One of the biggest overlooked things in politics today is that people like feeling smart.”

This was a succinct encapsulation of our Jeff Jackson post yesterday, from

ettingermentum

on X.

Know what doesn’t make me feel smart?

Every single political fundraising email I get.

You can search all political fundraising emails at politicalemails.org and, well, it doesn’t make you feel very good about democracy (or people in general!).

You can also analyze the top-500 list of committees receiving contributions via ActBlue. The discrepancies are significant. Impressively, Rebecca Cooke has received 38,522 contributions via ActBlue in the first six months of the year - far more than many other similarly positioned candidates.

In How AOC Got My Email, we noted Jon Ossoff and Cory Booker as the other two candidates in my inbox. I wasn’t the only one: out of all candidates, AOC was #1 (736,389 contributions), Ossoff was #2 (613,893), and Booker was #6 (267,496). Bernie, Chris Murphy, and Mark Kelly round out the top-six.

The 2028 presidential primary may be 911 days away, but it is actually underway already for email list brokers!

Testing 1,2,3

We are not just analyzing this info, we are ramping up our own programming to make the marketplace work better for centrists in red districts needed to take a majority. And we are hoping people will feel smart (and be smarter). Here’s an excerpt from an email yesterday that is performing well:

This morning, our team talked to Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who represents a district Trump won by 5 points. That’s where our focus is - learning how we can support leaders like Vicente to win back a majority.

Here is what we learned:

• Last year, MAGA donors spent $8 million against Vicente, outspending Democrats by $3 million

• But voters sent him back because they know Vicente - they know his working class background, and his focus on affordability and sensible policies on energy & immigration

• So now, Texas Republicans are trying to change his voters. You’ve probably heard about what they’re doing, but you may not know that there are ONLY TWO TRUMP DISTRICTS THAT DEMOCRATS WON in all of Texas

Interested in any case studies people may want to share, or any feedback. We know “only progressives can raise money online” is wrong, but need to make things right - at scale.

Bookmarked

• From

  G. Elliott Morris
  : “On average, the party not in control of the White House gains 6 points from this point in the midterm cycle to Election Day (next Nov). Sometimes they gain more (11 points in 2009-2010!), sometimes less (2018 — started high). Dems up +2.3 today.” Link and chart here.

• What percentage of time on Instagram is spent looking at content from friends? Just 7%, says Meta.

• 2024 was the least violent year in America since the 1960s, although you wouldn’t know it from the media narrative …

  Matthew Yglesias
  puts it in context: yes, there is less crime “But there has never been more access to videos of crimes happening”

• On Bill Maher, George Will says he wants Zohran Mamdani to win because “every 20 years or so, we need a conspicuous, confined experiment with socialism so we can crack it up again."

• Adam Carlson with a case against Janet Mills for Senate in Maine:

  • Not super popular (52/46 job approval, 47/45 favs in latest UNH poll)

  • She’s 77 (older than Collins)

  • Having to be dragged into a race usually doesn’t bode well for how hard you campaign

• Abolish ICE is back, according to another member of the Progressive Caucus. AOC said it should “not exist” earlier this year (in a fundraising email, naturally) which was amplified by Trump’s White House.