As we enter the final sprint of the 2018 midterms, I’ve been thinking about how things could fall apart. Democrats are by no means guaranteed a House takeover. The current 538 forecast gives them a 77% chance of winning. That’s only about five percent higher than Hillary Clinton’s final probability of winning in 2016.

I’ve also been thinking about how to strategically donate to House candidates. As Democrats, I’ll argue that the smartest way to make the Blue Wave “robust” is to donate to underfunded candidates in races slightly favoring the Republicans. Folks like Linda Coleman, Lauren Underwood, and George Scott may well be the key to a Blue Wave.

The Nightmare Scenario

To see how Republicans could narrowly hold onto the House, we need only look at the results from the last election.

Around this time in 2016, Cook rated 8 seats as Lean D, 17 as Toss-Ups, and 12 as Lean R. All but one of the Lean D seats ultimately went to Dems; all of the Lean R seats ultimately went to Republicans. But the Toss-Up seats were a disaster for Team Blue: only 5/17 (29%) were won by Democrats in November.

This raises an interesting point about the Cook ratings. Over a horizon of many elections, the ratings are spot-on. A review of their pre-Labor Day ratings between 1984 and 2008 found that “of the 130 Democratic-held seats rated as Toss Up, 49.2 percent went for Democrats, and 55.0 percent of the 160 Republican held seats rated as Toss Up were won by the GOP.”

Yet within an individual election, Toss-Ups can break disproportionately for one party or the other. These effects just tend to cancel out over time as some races break for Team Blue and others for Team Red. And 2016 — in which state-level polling failed to account for stark educational differences in party support and Democratic enthusiasm collapsed following the Comey letter — was a dramatic example of Toss-Ups breaking for one party.

Now, the nightmare: suppose 2018 is also suffering systematic polling error, or an October surprise weakens Democrats late in the race. If the same win probabilities were to be applied to the current crop of 11 Lean Democrat and 31 Toss-Up seats, Dems would pick up 18 seats: five short of the number needed for the majority.

And that would be the worst.

Expanding the Map

In this model, Democrats have two options for a robust Blue Wave: either they push more Toss-Up seats to Lean Dem, or they expand the pool of Toss-Up seats.

The first option is intriguing: if nine currently rated Toss-Up seats shifted to the Lean D column (all else being equal), then Dems would win a 218 seat majority even under 2016 win probabilities. This may well be a path to victory. But a lot of smart election folks have argued this year and last that Democrats are better off expanding the map than they are investing narrowly in promising candidates.

Part of the argument comes down to money, and this is particularly true if you’re a small-dollar donor considering whom to support. Many Toss-Up races are already attracting blockbuster spending from outside groups. Sixteen such races already have more than $10MM committed from outside entities, and the candidates themselves are raising crazy amounts. With parties pouring in money, the spending required to get one of these races from Toss-Up to Lean Dem may well be astronomical.

An alternative path for the civic-minded Democrat would be to invest in underfunded Dem candidates who just might make a sleeper race competitive. We’d need 17 additional Toss-Up seats to get to a victory under the 2016 probabilities — a heavy lift. But even moving a handful of races leftward would provide some “insurance” for the Democrats.

The Data

Unfortunately, as of this writing, Q3 fundraising numbers aren’t available for most candidates. To give some early suggestions, I’m going to use the Q2 numbers available from Daily Kos. I’ll aim to update this post when newer fundraising numbers are released, as I anticipate substantial changes in some of the races.

I’m also lising outside spending numbers from Open Secrets. In the results below, the amount of variability is really quite striking.

CD Rep

Candidate R Cash

on Hand ($1000s) Dem

Candidate R Cash

on Hand ($1000s) Ratio Outside Spending

($1000s) NY-27 Chris Collins (I) 1,342 Nathan McMurray 82 6% 6 GA-06 Karen Handel (I) 1,003 Lucy Mcbath 151 15% ? MO-02 Ann Wagner (I) 3,388 Cort VanOstran 541 16% 30 GA-07 Rob Woodall (I) 529 Carolyn Bordeaux 98 19% 0 PA-16 Mike Kelly (I) 1,700 Ron DiNicola 343 20% 31 AR-02 French Hill (I) 1,645 Clarke Tucker 386 23% 469 NE-02 Don Bacon (I) 1,067 Kara Eastman 258 24% 1,025 FL-16 Vern Buchanan (I) 2,492 David Shapiro 785 32% 653 MT-AL Greg Gianforte (I) 1,373 Kathleen Williams 462 34% ? PA-10 Scott Perry (I) 554 George Scott 208 38% 67 IL-13 Rodney Davis (I) 1,592 Betsy Londrigan 659 41% 408 FL-26 Carlos Curbelo (I) 2,601 Debbie Mucarsel-Powell 1,264 49% 3,681 OH-12 Troy Balderson (I) 275 Daniel O’Connor 148 54% ? TX-23 Will Hurd (I) 2,019 Gina Ortiz Jones 1,151 57% 2,359 WA-05 Cathy McMorris Rodgers (I) 1,711 Lisa Brown 1,053 62% 74 NC-02 George Holding (I) 253 Linda Coleman 157 62% 4 IL-14 Randy Hultgren (I) 1,020 Lauren Underwood 652 64% 62 CA-50 Duncan Hunter (I) 352 Ammar Campa-Najjar 280 80% 3 WV-03 Carol Miller 189 Richard Ojeda 163 86% 161 UT-04 Mia Love (I) 1,233 Ben McAdams 1,249 101% 323 TX-31 John Carter (I) 538 M.J. Hegar 867 161% 27 FL-15 Ross Spano 108 Kristen Carlson 193 179% 56 VA-05 Denver Riggleman 208 Leslie Cockburn 483 232% 94 WI-01 Bryan Steil 619 Randy Bryce 2,154 348% 620 SC-01 Katie Arrington 62 Joe Cunningham 319 515% 21

Open Secrets doesn’t appear to separate spending between special elections and regular elections each cycle, so correct outside spending numbers for GA-6 and MT-AL aren’t readily available.

Some Semi-Scientific Suggestions

There are a lot of rational ways to pick candidates from the above list. Here is my thinking:

I’d generally advocate picking candidates who aren’t already way ahead in cash (since you might get diminishing returns) and who aren’t being swamped by outside spending (since your money might not go very far). Cheaper races, in terms of total dollars spent, are also attractive.

Given that we’re working with out-of-date data, I’m not suggesting OH-12, CA-50, or NY-27 because these races’ dynamics have shifted so much since Q2 (In OH-12, the Republican won the special election; in CA-50 and NY-27, the Republican incumbent was indicted). Q3 fundraising numbers will strongly influence my decision to donate.

Polling data never hurts, and here is a great repository of available polls maintained by a Redditor. Though all the races are rated Lean R, candidates who have a few polls showing them within striking distance might be the closest to becoming true Toss-Ups.

With this in mind, here are six candidates I’m considering supporting financially: