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Thoughts on How to Maximize Your Donations in 2026

Some thoughts on avoiding flushing your money and time down the toilet.

Dan Pfeiffer

Feb 21

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It’s mailbag time!

Many of you asked for a response to the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling. I quickly wrote one up and sent it out on Friday. Here’s the link, in case you missed it because you had better things to do on a Friday afternoon.

A quick reminder: these mailbags run every Saturday as a special feature for paid subscribers. Subscribe to get full access and drop your questions for future mailbags.

Don’t forget to leave your questions for next week’s mailbag in the comments section.

David Levin

Hi Dan, fingers crossed I haven’t missed a message box about this…

Do you have any thoughts you can share about donating to “exciting” vs practical senate races? I’m curious where our donations have the best chance of winning races vs races where all the media attention is going.

Jen Crook

Hey Dan - I’m in a quandary and hope you can help.

Since the 2016 election I’ve donated to Dem candidates nation wide; Georgia for Ossoff and Warnock, Kelly and Gallegos (grew up in Arizona), Fetterman (🤨), McGrath in Kentucky, plus the DNC and the DNCC - I’ve lost track!! Since 2025 I vowed to only donate to California elections, where I live, yet I get bombarded from every Dem in the country. My question is: even if I want to only donate to CA races, it’s more and more difficult to figure out. There are 11 Democrats trying to unseat Issa in the new 48th district, for example. Many people send me texts and emails before they even have a position statement!
What would you advise as the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak?

Answer

I wanted to tackle these two important questions together because it’s a topic that comes up frequently, and it’s one of the reasons why I originally started Message Box more than five years ago.

The Democratic Party (defined broadly) makes an endless series of requests of its most loyal donors and activists and rarely provides the information they need to prioritize them. Every race is the most important in the world. Every campaign is just a few donations away from victory or on the verge of collapse without them. Every PAC has figured out the secret sauce to defeating MAGA. This leaves donors confused about where to give and disillusioned when their hard-earned dollars go to a race where Democrats never had a realistic chance (like Amy McGrath in 2020).

This cycle, I want to do a better job of helping you invest your time and money wisely...