Memo: Analyzing the Impact of Give Smart and Future Now Fund Endorsements

By Sean McElwee (@SeanMcElwee) and Jacob Coblentz (@Jacob_Coblentz)

In the 2018 midterm elections, Future Now Fund (FNF) endorsed 62 candidates across six legislative chambers in five states. In addition, Data for Progress’s Give Smart campaign endorsed 30 candidates of their own. Following the election, FNF provided Data for Progress with election results and district political dynamics for every state legislative race in 21 states, with an indicator for whether FNF and/or Give Smart made an endorsement in the race. As a preliminary analysis, we are interested in knowing whether endorsed candidates performed measurably better than raw district fundamentals would otherwise predict.

read the memo