Which Blue Tent Candidates Won and Lost — and What Did We Learn?

Blog

Nov 14

Together, Blue Tent’s community of donors came together in this election to direct over $600,000 to underfunded candidates in key state-level races or neglected House races that were written off by bigger donors and party committees.

The result: Most of the candidates we recommended won. Those that lost mostly did so by small margins. Either way, the Blue Tent approach worked. We identified where modest amounts of money might help tip tight races and 2,250 donors responded — giving to candidates that most had probably never heard of before. (I certainly hadn’t, in most cases.)

Blue Tent donors also sent over $182,000 to grassroots groups working to mobilize voters in key battleground states.

It’s hard to ever know if our money makes a difference. What we do know is that Democrats just had the best midterms in 20 years, including scoring big, state-level wins that have dramatically reduced the risk of a constitutional crisis in 2024.

Securing the integrity of elections in swing states was at the core of Blue Tent’s 2022 strategy. We focused heavily on races for secretary of state, attorney general, and state supreme courts, as well as down-ballot legislative races that could swing control of a chamber.

While a few results are still outstanding, here’s a rundown of how Blue Tent candidates did and how much we raised for each — along with some reflections on how we could have done better and lessons learned.

Secretaries of State

Believing that Democratic control of secretary of state offices in key states was critically important to the integrity of the 2024 election, Blue Tent recommended four SOS candidates: Jocelyn Benson (Michigan), Adrian Fontes (Arizona), Doug La Follette (Wisconsin), and Bee Nguyen (Georgia). While we dropped Benson in August, given her fundraising success, we kept raising money for Fontes, La Follette, and Nguyen.

Blue Tent donors gave $37,594 to support Fontes, the most for any Blue Tent candidate. He won by 6 points. They also gave $11,555 to Doug La Follette, who looks like he’ll win his race by less than 1 percentage point. We made a more questionable call in recommending Nguyen, who lost by 9 points. Blue Tent donors gave $27,994 to Nguyen’s bid, which — in retrospect — was probably a longshot, given that her opponent, Brad Raffensperger, famously stood up to election subversion and was well-positioned to win moderate voters. We were aware of that in making our recommendation, but believed that all secretary of state candidates in 2024 battleground states should have the resources to compete and that Nguyen needed additional support against an incumbent opponent. We did not recommend Francisco Aguilar, the Democratic secretary of state candidate in Nevada who won by just over 2 points, because he had a major fundraising lead over his opponent, Jim Marchant — outraising him by more than 3 to 1.

Attorneys General

These officials also have the power to affect election results — and a lot else, too, including abortion rights. That’s why Blue Tent called on small donors to focus on AG races starting early this year. By August, though, we’d taken most AG candidates off our top priority list since they were outraising their opponents. The only one we kept fundraising for is Rochelle Garza (Texas) and Kris Mayes (Arizona). Blue Tent donors gave $26,931 to Mayes, whose race has not yet been called and is leading by less than 1 point against a very scary opponent. They donated $5,549 to Garza, lost by 9 points, and probably never had a chance. Why did we recommend Garza? Two main reasons: One, the incumbent Ken Paxton seemed vulnerable because of scandals; and two, Garza was dramatically underfunded and badly needed more money to have any shot at winning in a big state like Texas. Still, this was a poor recommendation in retrospect, given how intensifying polarization has reduced the importance of candidate quality and how winning statewide office in Texas, always a longshot for Democrats, was likely even harder this year in the face of a well-financed incumbent like Paxton and political headwinds. The truth is that our judgment on this case was clouded by the “flip-Texas-blue” fantasy, which remains just that for now. Lesson learned.

State Supreme Courts

Following guidance from the Justice Project, Blue Tent raised a small amount of money—$3,767—for three judges in states where control of these key courts hung in the balance: Terri Jamison and Marilyn Zayas in Ohio, and Kyra Harris Bolden in Michigan. Harris Bolden lost by just 2 points, so that recommendation was solid. But Jamison and Zayas both got crushed by 14 points, suggesting this was a poor recommendation. There were very few competitive state supreme court races with decisive stakes, which is why Jamison and Zayas were on our list, despite long odds in a red state. In retrospect, though, we should only have recommended Harris Bolden.

U.S. House of Representatives

Blue Tent was initially not inclined to recommend many House candidates for two reasons: First, nearly all federal candidates tend to be well-financed and thus represent a poor value for small donors. And, second, we believed that Democrats had little chance of holding the House, given historical patterns for midterms. Both of these assumptions turned out to be wrong.

The House was way more competitive than most people thought, with fewer seats in play than in past elections and a more calcified, polarized electorate that’s become less likely to swing back and forth between parties.

Also, some House candidates found themselves underfunded in the face of a heavy onslaught of GOP spending. Blue Tent did end up identifying a handful of House candidates in tight races and mainly focused on raising money for two of them: Adam Gray (California) and Jamie McLeod-Skinner (Oregon). In addition, we've raised money for some other underfunded House candidates. You can see election results and amounts contributed below. Two out of 10 of the races have not yet been called because they are so close, and three others were decided by 2 points or less, which underscores the strength of Blue Tent's recommendations.

State Legislatures

Blue Tent focused on state legislative races that could decide control of a chamber or give the GOP a veto-proof supermajority, and then identified underfunded candidates in such races. We’ve mainly raised money for just four candidates: Ethan Cha (Minnesota), Christy Clark (North Carolina), Cindy Hans (Arizona), and Padma Kuppa (Michigan). In addition, we’ve raised some money for another eight candidates who were underfunded and in tight races. You can see election results and amounts contributed below. A quarter of the races are still uncalled. Three were decided by under 1,000 votes. Again, close margins like that indicate that Blue Tent made strong recommendations. Our biggest oversight on state legislative races was not to focus more heavily on Pennsylvania, where control of the State House will be decided by razor-thin margins when all races are finally called.

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Blue Tent Candidate Results

Amount raised by Blue Tent is in parentheses. Election margin is in bold. An asterisk connotes that the candidate remained a Blue Tent top priority recommendation through Election Day.

Secretaries of State