Thanks for writing this, Jeff!

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After the events of:

-Abrupt & unlawful destruction of USAID & continual withholding of congressionally mandated global health funds leading to at least hundreds of thousands of deaths.

-Slowing of economic growth / economic development / poverty alleviation with tariffs.

-The execution in the street of Alex Pretti.

-The siding with Putin, who is facilitating the killing of US service members, and the resulting slaughter of more Ukrainian civilians and the likely extension of the Ukraine war along with the extension of all its risks for WWIII.

It may be time to add a supplementary dimension to what people choose to fund & work on. The fossil fuel industry, farmers / ranchers, car dealerships / auto-repair, trucking, & construction industry all lean heavily MAGA and have available / upcoming technology & process changes that could reduce the MAGA lean of the industry or that could reduce the number of people required in those industries. And some of these also overlap with other goals like reducing animal suffering, climate change mitigation, reducing the cost of housing, etc.

Like:

-Alternative proteins & lab grown meat & precision fermentation to reduce animal meat consumption & all the extra farming required for the animal feed.

-Autonomous tractors / drones / robotics for things like tilling / spraying / picking / etc.

-Driverless trucking.

-Direct to consumer EV sales which would avoid dealerships, lower car repair needs with EVs, & lower fossil fuel needs.

-Solar & battery improvements to reduce energy costs, reduce fossil fuel needs, & give poorer countries better electricity options.

-Displace most fossil fuels with synthetic fuels made from solar energy, air, & water (https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/06/27/the-terraformer-mark-one/) and (https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2026/06/16/the-enormous-size-of-the-oil-and-gas-market-drives-adoption-of-synthetic-fuel-production/).

-More factory-built homes / automated & streamlined construction.

Pointing this out:

Which is not to say he'll definitely win: it's a competitive field and he's at 42% on Manifold. Still, I decided to donate,

You should specifically donate to candidates who won't "definitely" win. Closest to 50% is best, and 42% is pretty darn close to 50%. My heuristic is to try treating 25-75 as a competitive race.

For candidates <50%, you have util/fuzzy split: it's fun to win, but util cares about flipping a loss to a win, not just being on the winning side.

(Caveats, out of scope to this specific point: betting markets are sometimes doctor-able or can have multiple equilibria, early momentum for a candidate at near 0% is a special case)

Amen that this is both an exciting opportunity, and feels depressing. I didn't get into EA to buy warm fuzzies, but I do miss them.

My sense is that this is absolutely true:

election campaign contributions might be a way in which you can have a substantial impact as a small donor

However, I also get the sense that it's quite hard, in a way that (for example) following GiveWell recommendations isn't. Politics is highly anti-inductive and it's really hard to know how and where to give, and even in retrospect it can often be hard to tell if one's donations made a difference.

Personally I stay away from political donations just because I feel like I don't understand it well, and getting that understanding is really quite difficult. It's hard to have true beliefs about politics for a variety of reasons.

Thanks! 

I had quick look into Alex Bores campaign, sounds promising. I shared it with an EA friend who happens to be a registered Democrat in NY-12, and could vote for him. She said she'll look into it and share it with other voters. 

Bores lost, quite narrowly, with 35% to 39%. 

Interestingly an anti AI regulation super PAC spent $8m against Bores, which apparently triggered other PACs to spend $19m for his campaign. In a small race of only ~100k votes, that's $ ~270 per vote. 

Curious if that changes anyone's stance towards political donations on such AI regulation candidates. 

More context 

 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/23/micah-lasher-wins-new-york-congress-primary-00972335

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/politics/new-york-primary-bores-lasher-ai.html 

Taking an Outside View, there is a ton of historical precedent for people believing that the best thing they could do for the world is to ensure that their Group is in power.

But spending money to help the world's poorest people in the most effective ways possible, while asking for nothing in return? Now that's pretty cool and interesting.

One to note here for the sake of epistemic clarity was that my 2021 post (the first link in the article) was essentially fluffing for a post like ASB's (the link in the second paragraph, a case for carrick flynn) to come out later, and I wrote and published it as part of a coordinated political strategy in which I had a minor role. I have some further reflections here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FffuQRBYjvm5hiaFw/there-s-a-role-for-small-ea-donors-in-campaign-finance?commentId=k83FvCDNvhdiovvfc