Should you donate to individual campaigns or funds like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)? I figure that the DSCC would have experts with better information about where campaign donations would have the most impact, much like EA Funds, but I don’t know how they work.
Unlike many EA priorities, because of campaign finance limits of $5,000 per person in donations, political giving is bottlenecked by the number of donors in addition to the total dollar amount available. This means the impact of small-dollar donations is disproportionately high in this area.
DSCC’s goals are just to elect democrats – they don’t consider, for instance, how different democrats differ on EA criteria such as biosecurity. Donating to particularly aligned candidates (especially in primaries) is probably higher value than donating to existing (non-EA) funds.
True! A lot of policies I favor (like climate action) are easier to enact when Democrats have a majority in the relevant legislature, but one could have a Democratic majority and still be held up by a single Democratic politician who opposes climate action (Joe Manchin).
But finding candidates who are competitive and support the policies you value could be difficult for individuals because it requires you to have information on races across the country. So I think there’s a role for PACs etc. to select candidates on behalf of donors.
Should you donate to individual campaigns or funds like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)? I figure that the DSCC would have experts with better information about where campaign donations would have the most impact, much like EA Funds, but I don’t know how they work.
Also, for what it’s worth, the post introducing Guarding Against Pandemics also talks about campaigns being a comparative advantage for small donors:
DSCC’s goals are just to elect democrats – they don’t consider, for instance, how different democrats differ on EA criteria such as biosecurity. Donating to particularly aligned candidates (especially in primaries) is probably higher value than donating to existing (non-EA) funds.
True! A lot of policies I favor (like climate action) are easier to enact when Democrats have a majority in the relevant legislature, but one could have a Democratic majority and still be held up by a single Democratic politician who opposes climate action (Joe Manchin).
But finding candidates who are competitive and support the policies you value could be difficult for individuals because it requires you to have information on races across the country. So I think there’s a role for PACs etc. to select candidates on behalf of donors.