Everything you can do to help win an election

The short version:

• Vote (especially if you’re in a swing state)
• Give money if you have it to spare (mainly to candidates in competitive U.S. House and Senate races)
• If you have time to volunteer, door-to-door canvassing is probably best, or phone banking if you can’t do that.
• Talk to friends and family, with compassion, if you think you have any hope of influencing them in a positive way; or if you think they might not vote at all.

The rest of this web site attempts to answer the questions:

• What else can I do? I.e., if I have professional skills that could be of use to a campaign, can I use them as a volunteer (or paid employee)?
• How do I get started?
• What will it be like?
• How much will any of this actually help my candidate win?

Some parts of this site are probably too long-winded, but I suspect that 95% of its value is in the table of contents. A reasonable strategy is to look through that and click on the things that sound most appealing to you, rather than reading the entire site.

This effort is doomed for two main reasons:

1. I’m completely unqualified for this. I’ve barely been involved in elections. I’ve done a bit of phone banking, a tiny amount of door knocking, and some postcard writing; and I’ve done some online research. I don’t know what I’m doing. But the article I wish I could read on this subject doesn’t seem to exist, so I’m attempting to write it myself. (This is the closest thing I’ve found, and I recommend it.) I’m hoping to get feedback and suggestions from people who know more than me, both before and after I publish it. I would love it if other people would step in and write whole new sections to add to it, or to replace what’s already here.
2. No one really knows how effective any of these are. Research almost always points to “not very,” and occasionally “not at all”. But none of the research is very definitive. And unfortunately some results are never made public, especially if they seem to show that the methods don’t work, which means that on average, campaign methods are probably a bit less effective than published research shows.

Things I’m not trying to do with this web site: give advice to professional campaigners, or describe ways to “do good” other than winning an upcoming election. The intended audience is people who have opinions about an election, and want to do something about it, but aren’t sure how.

I’m also not trying to tell you which candidates to support, or how to decide, except briefly, right here: Please help Democrats win in November 2026, especially for the U.S. Senate and House. I am not a registered Democrat, and don’t especially endorse the party, except as the only currently viable way to defeat MAGA-aligned Republicans, who are destroying the country and possibly the world. (If you’re inclined to support Republicans, there’s probably no point in arguing with you; but I ask you to take some time to reflect on your motives. Are your opinions based on facts? Personalities? Social expectations? Habit? Laziness? Fear? Anger? Genuine concern for the well being of yourself and others? In fact, please do this regardless of your political leanings. No one is immune to motivated reasoning. I could be wrong about everything, and I hope I would be receptive to evidence of that.)

Note that basically anything you do has a bigger effect in midterm elections than in presidential election years, because of the lower baseline of turnout and engagement.

Everything here is meant to pertain mainly to USA elections. I know even less about elections elsewhere.