As others mentioned, this feels like too much of an update based on one data point.
One of the largest advantages EAs running for office will have is their ability to fundraise from other EAs. I worry that skepticism of EAs in politics and/or slowness to act on time sensitive donation oppos will kneecap the success of future candidates.
Big picture, I think the impact case was pretty solid. The US govt is enormously influential. It moves a lot of money, regulates important industries, has the largest military, and can uniquely affect x risk. Members of congress exert significant control over the govt. Senators more, president most.
Having an extremely committed EA in govt seems worth A LOT to me.
Raising some amount of money is essential to winning, no matter how much outside money is committed to a race. Campaigns need to hire staff, get on the ballot, and do other things that super PACs can’t do. They also get much more favorable rates on TV ad buys, can make better ads, etc. “Hard money”, i.e. that raised by campaigns by retail donors and governed by donor caps, is way more valuable than “soft money”, i.e. independent expenditure made by super PACs.
It seems clear to me that marginal hard dollars increase the odds of success, and it doesn’t have to be that big of an increase for it to be a good bet in expected value terms.
I would guess that almost no EAs donating to GiveWell charities really understand the evidence base and models going into the recommendation, but we outsource our thinking to people/orgs we trust. Obviously, there’s way less of a track record with running EAs for office and a lot of uncertainty baked into politics. But the most experienced, aligned people in the political data science world were supportive of this particular race happening, and A LOT of thinking went into this decision.
Another thing to consider is the enormous amount of info value we got out of this campaign. It looks like large amounts of money are not a sufficient condition for victory, but if Carrick hadn’t been able to raise the amount of hard money needed to make the campaign happen, we would’ve learned a lot less.
Epistemic status: very tired.
As others mentioned, this feels like too much of an update based on one data point.
One of the largest advantages EAs running for office will have is their ability to fundraise from other EAs. I worry that skepticism of EAs in politics and/or slowness to act on time sensitive donation oppos will kneecap the success of future candidates.
Big picture, I think the impact case was pretty solid. The US govt is enormously influential. It moves a lot of money, regulates important industries, has the largest military, and can uniquely affect x risk. Members of congress exert significant control over the govt. Senators more, president most.
Having an extremely committed EA in govt seems worth A LOT to me.
Raising some amount of money is essential to winning, no matter how much outside money is committed to a race. Campaigns need to hire staff, get on the ballot, and do other things that super PACs can’t do. They also get much more favorable rates on TV ad buys, can make better ads, etc. “Hard money”, i.e. that raised by campaigns by retail donors and governed by donor caps, is way more valuable than “soft money”, i.e. independent expenditure made by super PACs.
It seems clear to me that marginal hard dollars increase the odds of success, and it doesn’t have to be that big of an increase for it to be a good bet in expected value terms.
I would guess that almost no EAs donating to GiveWell charities really understand the evidence base and models going into the recommendation, but we outsource our thinking to people/orgs we trust. Obviously, there’s way less of a track record with running EAs for office and a lot of uncertainty baked into politics. But the most experienced, aligned people in the political data science world were supportive of this particular race happening, and A LOT of thinking went into this decision.
Another thing to consider is the enormous amount of info value we got out of this campaign. It looks like large amounts of money are not a sufficient condition for victory, but if Carrick hadn’t been able to raise the amount of hard money needed to make the campaign happen, we would’ve learned a lot less.
Some of us already knew that “large amounts of money are not a sufficient condition for victory,” but I agree there are other things we can learn.