Small Dollars, Big Strategy: Brian Derrick

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Future Hindsight – "Small Dollars, Big Strategy" with Brian Derrick

Date: October 9, 2025
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: Brian Derrick, political strategist, activist, co-founder of Oath

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Overview

In this episode, host Mila Atmos interviews Brian Derrick, the co-founder of Oath, a donor advising platform aimed at helping individuals make impactful political donations. Derrick shares how Oath seeks to empower small donors by providing data-driven insights and civic education, ultimately maximizing the effectiveness of political giving. The discussion delves into campaign funding dynamics, the diminishing returns of campaign contributions, the importance of state and local races, and how grassroots engagement is reshaping Democratic politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge of Small Donor Engagement

[00:55 – 02:47]

• Many voters are overwhelmed by donation requests from unfamiliar candidates.
• Donating is a vital form of civic engagement, but few have the tools to do it effectively.

Quote:

“Oftentimes people are overwhelmed by the sheer number of requests that they're getting from candidates and causes that they might really align with… So we created Oath as a donor resource to address that overwhelming feeling.”
— Brian Derrick [03:08]

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2. How Oath Works: The Impact Score

[04:25 – 06:29]

• Oath’s core feature is its “impact score” (0-10), designed to guide donors to where their money matters most.
• The impact score is based on:
  • Competitiveness (likelihood of a close race)
  • Stakes (potential for race to affect legislative balance)
  • Financial Need (projected optimal funding and comparison to opponent/outside spending)
• Oath aims to direct funds to races where a contribution could tip the balance, versus already well-funded or unwinnable campaigns.

Quote:

“Our goal is to really be on the donor side, to be a donor advocate and help them navigate the ecosystem and create political change in the process.”
— Brian Derrick [04:07]

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3. Redefining Success in Political Giving

[07:00 – 08:43]

• Oath measures success by “bang for buck,” not just win rates.
• They target funds to races determined by less than 5% margin—where dollar input is most impactful.
• Huge sums are wasted on already safe races; in 2024, 67% of Democratic Senate donations went to races decided by more than 5%.

Quote:

“Most organizations will tell you, ‘Oh, we endorsed 40 candidates last cycle and 30 of them won; we’re super effective.’ But that can hide poor targeting decisions.”
— Brian Derrick [07:25]

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4. The Importance of State and Local Elections

[09:58 – 12:55]

• State and local positions—secretary of state, attorney general, county clerks—have immediate effects on people’s lives, yet are often underfunded.
• Civic education is crucial: people must understand what these offices do to feel motivated to support them.
• Oath uses infotainment/social media and post-election reporting (like a “Spotify Wrapped” for donations) to keep donors informed and engaged.
• Case example: Chris Mays’ narrow attorney general win in Arizona had a direct impact by defending abortion rights.

Quote:

“It’s so clear to people when you lay it out, that there was an overlooked race… she won by a very, very narrow margin. And then millions of people’s lives were directly impacted as a result.”
— Brian Derrick [12:40]

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5. Grassroots, Public Financing, and Modeling Candidate Strength

[12:55 – 17:20]

• In discussing NYC's mayoral race, Derrick explains how public financing programs and grassroots momentum can level the playing field.
• Oath doesn’t rate NYC municipal candidates due to unique public matching laws but recognizes the impact of small donor matching.
• Candidate quality—measured by real enthusiasm, organizing, and polling trends—influences Oath’s modeling, but not all factors are quantifiable.

Quote:

“All that we can offer is that we want you, as an individual donor, to have the full picture of the data available behind your decision making at any point in time. We're going for transparency.”
— Brian Derrick [15:49]

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6. The Role and Limitations of Super PACs

[21:12 – 26:05]

• Oath tracks all visible super PAC and outside spending data, though total transparency is hampered by “dark money.”
• Super PAC dollars are less effective than direct campaign dollars: rules prohibit coordination and direct candidate messaging, resulting in inefficiencies.
• Campaigns benefit from early and direct contributions—enabling them to build staff and organize, unlike last-minute ad blitzes from super PACs.

Quote:

“A super PAC dollar is less effective than a dollar given directly to a campaign… One of the reasons that we're always directing people, especially grassroots donors, to give directly to the campaigns instead of these sort of faceless groups.”
— Brian Derrick [25:08]

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7. The Importance of Timing and Tactics in Donations

[26:24 – 30:16]

• Early donations allow campaigns to invest in ground game, staff, and voter engagement; late funds usually go to (less effective) media buys.
• Research shows TV ads are the least cost-effective way to net votes; staff and canvassing (especially early) are much more impactful.

Quote:

“Once that's established, you want to give as early as humanly possible. And that's because the campaign can spend the money on different things early in the cycle compared to very late in the cycle.”
— Brian Derrick [27:12]

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8. Down-Ballot Success and Long-Term Impact

[30:23 – 34:01]

• Derrick gives examples of overlooked but pivotal races—such as breaking a GOP supermajority in North Carolina by flipping a single seat with a margin of 871 votes.
• Upcoming judicial retention races in Pennsylvania (with modest fundraising) could have outsized impact on presidential elections and ballot access.

Quote:

“Just being able to have that veto power could be massive for 2028… and it might have all come down to 871 votes in a race that no one has heard of.”
— Brian Derrick [32:10]

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9. The "Stock-Picking" Analogy and the Role of Oath

[34:01 – 36:25]

• Oath isn’t about exploiting a flawed system, but leveling the playing field for grassroots donors, who lack the coordinating power of billionaires.
• Even in public financing regimes, donors need guidance; Oath aims to empower, not override, grassroots intention.

Quote:

“Billionaires have full time teams telling them where to spend their money... Why shouldn't grassroots donors have the same thing?... That's how we see Oath.”
— Brian Derrick [34:51]

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10. The Zoran Mamdani Effect and Democratic Party Change

[36:25 – 40:03]

• Mamdani’s campaign in NYC symbolizes a broader “revolution” in the Democratic Party—new messages (on affordability), new messengers (youth, diversity), and new media (social and grassroots organizing).
• This signals a generational shift, reminiscent of the Tea Party’s effect on the GOP.

Quote:

“He represented a new generation of people who said, we’re ready to pass the torch, and you can either pass it or we're gonna take it. And sort of embodying that energy.”
— Brian Derrick [38:03]

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11. Civic Spark: What You Can Do

[40:04 – 41:47]

• Derrick’s actionable advice: Pick an election you’ve never participated in—especially an overlooked or local race—and get involved as a donor or volunteer.
• This personal engagement demonstrates your power and broadens the focus beyond high-profile races.

Quote:

"Taking a small step of being involved, knowing who one of these candidates is... is a great way to remind yourself that you have more power in our electoral system than you think."
— Brian Derrick [41:35]

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12. Closing Thoughts: What Gives Hope

[41:55 – 44:45]

• Derrick feels hope from the surge of new candidates and engaged voters, especially from younger generations, and the growth of grassroots movements.
• While setbacks (like Trump’s wins) are dispiriting, they also spark wider desire and action for change—across both major parties.

Quote:

“After Trump 2.0, which is infinitely darker, I think people are looking for a less safe, more bold vision of what it looks like to turn the page... looking for something that is more hopeful but also is a more bold vision for how we can actualize our values.”
— Brian Derrick [44:05]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On donor frustration:
  “People's frustration should be even higher that at the same time that we spent over a billion dollars to lose that race, we were underfunding races that we lost that we could have won...”
  — Brian Derrick [08:58]

• On civic education’s importance:
  “I can't convince you to give to a really high impact secretary of state race if you have no idea what a Secretary of state does.”
  — Brian Derrick [10:24]

• On the battle within the Democratic Party:
  “There's not much debate anymore that that battle is happening and a different party is going to emerge on the other side of it.”
  — Brian Derrick [37:26]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• How Oath Empowers Donors – [02:47]
• Defining the Impact Score – [04:35]
• Diminishing Returns in Political Giving – [06:29]
• Role of State & Local Elections – [09:58]
• Civic Education Tactics and Reporting – [10:39]
• Super PACs vs. Direct Giving – [21:12]
• Most Effective Uses of Donations – [26:24]
• Case Study: Arizona Attorney General Race – [11:32]
• Civic Spark: Action Item – [40:19]
• What Makes Derrick Hopeful – [41:55]

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Actionable Takeaway

Find and get involved in an election—outside your usual scope—that’s happening soon. Whether as a donor or volunteer, focusing on overlooked races (like state judicial seats or utility commissions) maximizes your impact and deepens your engagement with democracy.

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For more resources and to explore races with high impact scores, visit Oath’s website.

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Transcript

[A]

Hey Future Hindsight listeners, It's the last day to vote in this year's Signal Awards. If you're catching this episode on October 9th, go to the link in the show Notes. To vote, vote for Future Hindsight in the News and Politics category. Thank you. And if you need a little more Future Hindsight in your life, subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's easy and free and a great way to build your civic action toolkit every week. Head to YouTube.com futurehiinsight to subscribe now. Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast on a mission to spark civic action. I'm your host, Mila Atmos. I'm a global citizen based in New York City, and I'm deeply curious about the way our society works. So each week I bring you conversations to cut through the confusion around today's most important civic issues and share clear, actionable ways for us to build a brighter future together. After all, democracy is not a spectator sport. Tomorrow starts right now. I know that no matter your political persuasion, you are inundated with text messages from candidates all across the US Making a plea for a donation. I don't know about you, but one reason I delete those messages right away is because I have no idea who most of those candidates are, what they actually stand for, or if they even have a shot at winning. And I know that I always tell people to take civic action, go to a town hall meeting or something like this. But making a donation to a candidate is in fact a form of engagement. So what if you could be strategic about your political donations, whether that's on issues that you feel are important or in pivotal elections that are out of the limelight. Our guest is Brian Derrick. He's a political strategist, activist, and creator with a passion for helping people find their power in our electoral system. He's a co founder of Oath, a donor advising platform whose mission is to empower donors to participate in our democracy by offering civic education and helping users manage their political giving to maximize impact. Welcome Brian. Thank you for joining us.

[B]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

[A]

So we just had a whole conversation with the Executive director of Open Secrets about money and politics and how they follow donations to political campaigns. So this conversation is from another vantage point. I just talked a little bit about Oath in the intro, but tell us more about how Oath works for the voter.

[B]

I did listen to that episode and really enjoyed it, and I think we have so much to dive into in this conversation. I'm very excited. We created Oath, as you mentioned, to empower individual donors to have the impact that they want to have in our political system. We know that money is not everything in politics, but it really matters. And oftentimes people are overwhelmed by the sheer number of requests that they're getting from candidates and causes that they might really align with that they want to help, but have no resource to guide them in how to navigate those decisions as to where they should be putting their dollars in order to affect the change that they want to see. And so we created Oath as a donor resource to address that overwhelming feeling of getting so many requests and text messages and emails that you didn't sign up for, and to eliminate some of the waste in the political ecosystem, because by our assessment, Democrats are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars per cycle by giving to candidates that have no path to victory or just overfunding races, that already have the resources that they need in order to run an effectual campaign. So our goal is to really be on the donor side, to be a donor advocate and help them navigate the ecosystem and create political change in the process.

[A]

Yeah, that's really brilliant. I mean, when I was on your website, I was, wow, this is really clever. I love it. And I had never heard of you, so I'm really excited to have this conversation.

[B]

Well, thank you.

[A]

So you have something called an impact score. What are the components that make up the impact score, and how accurate is your data in determining that score?

[B]

The impact score is really the heart of how we direct dollars. For maximum impact, we base the impact score, which is just a zero to ten metric that anyone can understand without much priming or education. It's based on three factors. The first is competitiveness. So how likely is this race to be close? Because we know, as I said, that money is important, but not all powerful, and so it's most effective in the races where just a handful of votes can change the outcome. The second factor are the stakes of the race. What happens if we win or lose this particular election? Could it flip an entire chamber, Congress, for example, or a state legislative majority? Could it make or break a trifecta in a specific state to give or stop one party from governing? And the third factor is financial need. That is certainly the most sophisticated of the metrics that we use, where we're pulling data from hundreds of different data sources to first project an optimal funding level for every race because we believe there is a point of diminishing returns, after which maybe campaigns should pump the brakes a bit rather than just fundraising all the way through. Election day as much as they possibly can. And then we track their progress towards that optimal funding level, as well as compare their fundraising to their opponent and any outside spending that is coming into the race as well. So those three factors, competitiveness, stakes, and financial need, all sum up into our impact score to make it really easy for someone to do a gut check of. Hey, I just got a text message. Should I give to this person? Well, you can go look them up on Oath and get our perspective as to whether a donation is likely to meaningfully change the likely outcomes of that race.

[A]

Well, it's really interesting what you said just now that you believe that at some point the dollars have diminishing returns. So, of course, traditionally, as somebody not armed with the data that you have and the experience that you have, we think of success in a political campaign and making our donations all about winning the race. But your position clearly is much more nuanced. Tell us a little bit about how you at Oath define success, especially in terms of bang for buck and maximizing impact.

[B]

Certainly, I do think that the ecosystem needs a brake pedal. Someone needs to be willing to say, okay, this race is now fully funded, and there are very few entities or individuals in the democratic system that have the incentive to do that. Because right now, candidates are strongly incentivized to raise as much money as humanly possible. And that's completely disconnected from the contours of their race on the ground. To your question, I think that we are really focused on moving dollars to where they can do the most good, rather than a very simple metric that I think most organizations anchor on these days, which is a win rate. Most organizations will tell you, oh, we endorsed 40 candidates last cycle and 30 of them won were super effective. But that really can hide poor targeting decisions, right? If 20 of those 30 candidates that you helped elect were in safe districts, you really didn't move the needle much in those races. And so we look at what percent of the overall funding that moves through Oath because all donations are directly from donor to candidate or organization, not to us. Thank you. And we look at what percent of their those go to a race that was ultimately decided by less than 5%. Because if you look at the ecosystem as a whole, take 2024, for example. Democrats directed about 67% of all donations to Senate races to elections. Two candidates that won or lost by more than 5% that weren't ultimately that close, 67% of over a billion dollars on those races.

[A]

I mean, it's crazy, the numbers, it's the kind of Thing where, you know, one thing that you hear over and over in polite conversation is that how did Democrats spent over a billion dollars and the candidate lost.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like, what is wrong with this picture?

[B]

Totally. And that's exactly our point is we were trying to direct people's attention, or dollars, I should say, not attention, dollars, away from the presidential into races that were further down ballot that were super underfunded. Because honestly, people's frustration should be even higher that at the same time that we spent over a billion dollars to lose that race, we were underfunding races that we lost that we could have won that were decided by 100 votes in state legislatures around the country. Races for secretary of state, attorney general, state supreme court, county clerks. These local and state positions really matter. And I think that we are seeing right now the effect of asymmetrical investment by the two parties over the last couple decades. And I think that oath can be one of the solutions that can help balance the scales to really give these races the resources that they need and not so much more than that in order to win.

[A]

Right, right. Well, we say this all the time on the podcast, that state and local elections matter way more to your everyday life. And for your state's attorney general to win is more meaningful than the presidential. I mean, it's not, not meaningful for the president to win, but it is more meaningful in your everyday safety and your rights. You know, when we're thinking about Secretary of State.

[B]

Absolutely. And that's where the civic education piece of our work comes into play. Because I can't convince you to give to a really high impact secretary of state race if you have no idea what a Secretary of state does. Yeah, like why should I do that?

[A]

How do you do this piece, the civic education piece?

[B]

We've leaned really heavily into like innovative digital campaigns that are social media forward short form video that can engage people, that can entertain people and deliver some bite sized action at the same time. On the front end, we really lean into that, I guess like infotainment kind of model. And then on the back end, it's all about accountability and reporting. Most people, after they give a political donation, never hear anything ever again other than ask requests for more money. Right.

[A]

Oh, I won. Thank you very much. We have another battle. Give me another $5.

[B]

Exactly, exactly. And so we actually report back to everyone, everyone, whether they gave $5 or $50,000, who won, who lost by how much, where your dollars had greatest impact. It's sort of like a Spotify wrapped is how I tend to explain it. And we continue to provide that is an education piece as well, that your dollars actually did matter in these specific races, and that policy changes came as a result. My favorite example of this from the last couple of cycles, probably Chris Mays, the attorney general in Arizona, won. Her race, first of all, was very highly rated on Oath. One of our top three rated candidates of that election cycle won her race by 280 votes out of more than 2.5 million votes cast. Like, couldn't be closer. And then ultimately went on to stand in the way of Arizona having an abortion ban when the state court there tried to implement this pre Civil War abortion ban in the state. And she was the one who fought that and won. And so it's so clear to people when you lay it out, that there was a overlooked race that we directed people's attention and resources toward. She won by a very, very narrow margin. And then millions of people's lives were directly impacted as a result. That feels like the type of, like, virtuous cycle that we're trying to get people to understand and see the full sort of picture of so that we can scale that. Because there are many more races that fit the same profile.

[A]

Right, right. Well, I want to shift here to a real life current example. We both live in New York City, and of course, there's a big mayoral campaign going on right now. Zoran Mamdani is the clear frontrunner, and he has out canvassed all the other candidates and built real grassroots engagement. So in your models, how do you account for grassroots campaigns and canvassing? Because of course, I. Most of your modeling centers on the financial aspect.

[B]

Absolutely. It's such a unique race, and I've been following it very closely. I will also say from the outset, one of the reasons that Mamdani had the path that he did and was able to win the primary against all odds and now be the favorite was the public financing program.

[A]

Yeah, I have a question about that also. Like, how effective is that? Yeah.

[B]

And I know that you and Hailey talked about that program during that episode as well. And that's what we latched onto right away, because it's very hard for candidates that are sort of seen as in the margins to raise enough money that they can actually compete with somebody like a Cuomo who has tens of millions of dollars being poured into their campaign from outside sources or billionaires or what have you. And so it was, I think, transformational for that campaign. He very early focused on small dollar donations, knowing that the matching would get him to the maximum that he needed to win.

[A]

But there, it also speaks to the diminishing returns because basically, you're capping what people are spending.

[B]

Yes. Which I think we could make a case for federally. But unfortunately, also, as you guys alluded to, I don't want to repeat your episode, but there are specific Supreme Court decisions that make that unlikely. Great. Yeah.

[A]

So, but, like, go ahead and talk about the matching dollars and how this shows up in your modeling for Oath.

[B]

Candidate quality is really important. And so the point that you're raising about Mamdani having all this momentum and this ground game, that's hard to sort of quantify. I think the way that we look at that is in sort of trends in public opinion. Right. That as his campaign gained more and more of a presence, he started to rise in the polls, and that changed what the prognosticators were saying about what the likely outcomes of the primary would be. It certainly was still an upset, and I think most people were surprised by it. But there are signals there that we can tap into to at least leverage all of the data available. Right. I can never promise anyone that Oath is, like, omniscient. Right. That we can predict the future. That's not.

[A]

Yes. Nobody can. I can say this out loud on the podcast. Nobody can predict the future.

[B]

Totally. All that we can offer is that we want you, as an individual donor, to have the full picture of the data available behind your decision making at any point in time. We're going for transparency. And so that certainly it was how we approach a race like that, and there are other examples, but.

[A]

So what are you rating him now on Oath?

[B]

So the tricky part there is we are not currently rating or publicly recommending, I should say, candidates in the New York City municipal elections who are participating in the public matching program.

[A]

I see.

[B]

And the reason for that is because there are very specific campaign finance regulations in the city of New York that are not more broadly applicable, that just create a barrier of entry for a platform like ours to be able to plug in in a way that's gonna be helpful to both candidates and donors. And so it's something that I hope that we can resolve over time. We launched Oath in 2022, and we're growing very, very quickly, but was not something that we were able to sort of launch for this cycle in a way that would be up to the standard of the experience that we want to give to our donors with confidence that it would work for the campaigns as well. So while we watch really closely and we've advised more informally donors on what their Options are for participating in mayoral and city council races. There's not currently a score.

[A]

Got it, got it. So you said something that I thought was surprising, that you thought this was still an upset that Zoran won the primary. Because I think going into the primary, it was pretty clear to me that he was going to win. And maybe that's why I didn't think it was an upset. But honestly, I didn't think that Cuomo was ever gonna win in the beginning. Well, first of all, Cuomo decided to run late. And if you had asked me In January of 2025, I thought the person who was gonna win was Bradlander. So I was a little bit surprised by the way that Zoran started, you know, gaining momentum. And then I was like, I think this guy is gonna get really close. And then when they started cross endorsing each other, and then when he no longer had to raise money and said, people who wanna give should give to Adrian Adams, which I thought was a little wild anyway, but I was like, oh, this guy is gonna win it for sure. But so tell me a little bit about why you thought it was an upset.

[B]

Do you describe yourself as extremely online? Like, do you feel that you spend above average amount of time on.

[A]

Probably, yes.

[B]

I don't know. I feel like among my friends and donor network, that is probably the biggest indicator as to whether you were surprised by the primary was how much time you were spending online consuming any content about the race. Because I agree with you, there was clear signs. And if you were seeing them, you could see the momentum was there and that he was building not just a standard municipal campaign, but a movement in New York.

[A]

Right.

[B]

If you were not online and you were not following that and you didn't see the energy, then it kind of was a David and Goliath and it fell into people's preconceived notions of like, well, Cuomo has $30 million from super PACs and is a household name. How does a 33 year old assembly member, the traditional, like, conventional political wisdom of the time, would put money on Cuomo in that bet. But I think that you're exactly right that he had tapped into something. And if you were also tapped into it, you saw it.

[A]

I see. Okay. Okay, that's fair. We'll be back with Brian in just a moment. So don't go anywhere. You wouldn't want to miss this episode. So, civic spark. One small step we can all take to be more empowered and ignite collective change. But first, we want to share about a podcast we think you'll enjoy called Democracy Decoded. Let's face it, our democracy is facing fundamental threats. Many of our government's critical checks and balances are being dismantled, challenged, or outright ignored. I'm Simone Leeper, host of Democracy Decoded, a podcast from Campaign Legal Center. This season we're focused on specific weak points in American democracy, how they're being exploited, and the innovative solutions that can reverse this downward spiral and strengthen our nation. Look for season five of Democracy Decoded wherever you get your podcasts. And now let's return to my conversation with Brian Derrick. Well, let's talk about super PACs. So these are, of course, the big dollar checks that are spent on external expenditures so they don't go directly to the campaign. And in the context of this race, of course, we have Andrew Cuomo's billionaire backers in the field, and I want to note here that he qualified for relatively little matching public dollars and also had a huge amount of matching funds withheld due to improper coordination with a super PAC called Fix the City. So do you track the PAC dollars and how do those dollars impact elections in comparison to the dollars that go directly to the campaign?

[B]

Great question. Important for the context of our work. We certainly are tracking all of the data that is available to us. Most of my team are engineers, and we're pulling in data from every publicly available source. And then we supplement that with data that we're purchasing from various data partners across the ecosystem. And it's not possible to get a full picture of the money that goes into the political ecosystem because of dark money and the sort of strategies used used to obfuscate spending and which you all touched on in the episode with Open Secrets. But what we can do is factor in all of the spending that's visible and that's the bulk. Right. You can add in some, like C3 nonprofit spending and other kinds of voter registration efforts that might never be reported as political spending, but the visibility of the spending varies by state and the federal level. And so we factor in as much data as is available about both what's already been spent and reported, as well as looking at ad reservations for what amount of spending is expected. Because you have big sewer PACs like the super PACs affiliated with the House arm of each party who will place tens and tens of millions of dollars in reservations months ahead of the election. And we can take a look at that and say, oh, we think that more is going to be poured into Colorado 8 than Pennsylvania 7, and factor that into what we think the candidates need to Raise in order to run their most effective campaign.

[A]

So how does the PAC dollar impact these elections? Okay, so they don't go directly to the campaign.

[B]

Exactly. So the PACs are essentially spending money on expenditures, running their own programs.

[A]

So I have a question about that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

What exactly qualifies as an independent expenditure that is different from what the campaign would be spending?

[B]

Yeah. You can't put ie, we would call it ie independent expenditure. You can't put IE money behind the candidate's own voice. It can't be the candidate in a video saying like, this is me, this is who I am. I'm endorsing this message. It has to be from friends of or citizens of.

[A]

I see.

[B]

So it's like sort of these faceless, anonymous AI. Yeah, right.

[A]

AI folks more and more with six fingers saying, I'm gonna endorse this candidate.

[B]

It literally, it is gonna be so AI heavy this, this cycle. And the other sort of restriction there is, the campaign is ostensibly not allowed to coordinate in any way with that independent expenditure committee that I think is the letter of the law, but they've developed all kinds of ways to work around that. There's a practice known as redboxing, where there'll be a public but non visited page on the campaign's website where they will put all of the stuff that they want super PACs to talk about. And then anything that's publicly available from the campaign can be used by independent expenditure.

[A]

And so I love to learn something new every day.

[B]

Yeah. Like, wow. If you look into red boxing, if you want to really be frustrated with how inadequate our campaign finance regulation is at the moment.

[A]

Yeah. Wow.

[B]

We've basically poked holes over the years more and more and more so that more money and more special interests can flow into the ecosystem and really enact their will onto our elections. There are still.

[A]

So then how impactful is the super PAC dollar?

[B]

A super PAC dollar is less effective than a dollar given directly to a campaign for those specific reasons because it can't be the candidate themselves talking. The messaging can be sort of signaled at, but not directly coordinated. And they don't have the same data that the campaign has about who their voters are, who's supporting them, who's not supporting them. That's ultimately how you get to your win number. And so super PACs also importantly, pay market rates for any advertising, whereas candidates are by law given the lowest possible rate. And so you can just buy more as a campaign than you can as an outside super pac. One of the reasons that we're always Directing people, especially. Especially the grassroots donors that we're working with to give directly to the campaigns instead of these sort of faceless groups that claim to support a lot of candidates.

[A]

Yeah. I'm curious a little bit about the marginal dollar, how much the marginal dollar matters, because if there's a close race, if you spend another $10,000 or $100,000, where does that money go to sway the voter, and how effective is that?

[B]

The real answer to your question depends on the time that you give it, the time that you give that donation.

[A]

All right, tell me.

[B]

And so we've already sort of talked about how people are often giving to the wrong campaigns over funding the wrong races. But the other really important factor in maximizing the utility of dollars is to give it the right time. And so you want to have clarity that this race is going to be close. And so that means that you need some data, you need some confidence that we know the contours of this particular election, and we think this is going to be a close race. But once that's established, you want to give as early as humanly possible. And that's because the campaign can spend the money on different things early in the cycle compared to very late in the cycle. For example, if I give a $100 donation now to a member of Congress who's running in a district that we know is going to be really competitive in November of 2026, they can use that money to hire a campaign manager to expand their volunteer recruitment and training programs, to hire comm staff, which most campaigns lack, don't have at this point in the cycle. There's a lot of data that shows is very effective. I can use it to establish a presence in the community versus if I give that same amount of money. And In September of 2026, just a couple weeks before the election, I might be even more confident that that race is going to be close. But functionally, the only thing you can do with that money at that point is buy more ads, because there's not time to recruit somebody new and train them and deploy them and build this program to go recruit five times as many volunteers. There's not enough time left.

[A]

And so canvassing is better.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Than ads.

[B]

Everything is more.

[A]

Or having better comps in the beginning is better than ads at the end. One of the things about the 24 election, it was sort of like people were still throwing money at this election. Right. And you kind of felt like, but where is it being spent? You need to get on a bus and go to Pennsylvania and Knock on doors. And then I had to sense like, so then it didn't work to knock on doors.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, like, which one is it?

[B]

Yeah, there's a lot of really great research done by the Analyst Institute. I would plug them here about which tactics are most cost efficient. If I spend $1,000 on TV ads versus digital ads versus on social media content versus mail versus door knocking versus and so we actually have like pretty robust. Robust data. Exactly. On which of those are most effective. Unsurprisingly, the most expensive way to net votes, as we say, to more new voters for yourself than the other person, is through TV. It's so expensive.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Oftentimes you're spending like $1,500.

[A]

No one watches TV.

[B]

No one watches TV. And the people who are watching it are so already voting. Exactly, exactly. So like actually reaching your target audience with persuasive content in that format is almost impossible these days versus staffing, particularly for down ballot races.

[A]

And early on.

[B]

Early on. Most effective. Extremely cost efficient for you to actually have people on the ground, especially if you're working in another job or you're an incumbent. And balancing running as a candidate and observing the constituents that you represent. Having full time staff early can be transformative for these campaigns. And so we're always trying to get people to give earlier and give further down ballot where over 50% of the budget is typically spent on staff versus 80% of a US Senate racist budget is typically spent on media buys.

[A]

Wow, fascinating. I love that you have all the data at your fingertips.

[B]

That's what we do. We are big data nerds.

[A]

Right, Right. So winning clearly matters. Right, because winning will hopefully get you governing power. Although of course we have a system that prefers minority rule, frankly. But if you have governing power, you can improve people's lives. And you mentioned the race in Arizona, but there are other down ballot races that are effective buffers against the Trump agenda. Tell us about another state level victory that was high stakes for everyday people.

[B]

Oh, I love this question. There's a lot that we could draw from. Do you want current races or things that have already come to pass?

[A]

Okay, so do the past first and then go to the current race.

[B]

Okay, great. In North Carolina, Republicans held a supermajority in the legislature going into the 2024 election, but Democrats held the governor's seat. The governor's race became relatively safe for Democrats as the election went on. You might have heard of Mark Robinson was like famously batting against Josh Stein.

[A]

Yes, and Josh won.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And so what the Opportunity became in North Carolina was to break the Republican supermajority to prevent them from overriding Josh Stein's veto. Because we were confident that we would have the governor's seat coming out of the 24 election. And so getting really nuanced in how we were able to target down ballot races in North Carolina helped flip Dante Pittman's seat. It ultimately came down to 871 votes. Very, very narrow margin. And flipping that seat broke the supermajority in House. And so Republicans can no longer override a veto from the governor of North Carolina. And as we look at changes that Republicans are trying to make to voting rights and access to the ballot, to the redistricting lines around the country, that can be the game changer. Right. Is just being able to have that veto power could be massive for 2028. When we think about how that election's gonna go, and it might have all come down to 871 votes in a race that no one has heard of.

[A]

Right. Nobody paid attention to.

[B]

No one paid attention to.

[A]

But in 2024, this was just. Everybody was paying attention to a different race.

[B]

Exactly. Exactly. But that was what we were paying attention to. Right. Is like that's where you have the opportunity for outs what you're talking about. It's happening right now. Again, there are elections happening in a number of weeks. In November of 2025. Most people, if they're paying attention at all, are looking at the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

The California redistricting ballot measure, very important. But there are also Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania. There are three seats right now in Pennsylvania that will be decided in November. And that could determine whether we have a pro come 2028. When we think about these rulings around what ballots should be counted and who ultimately matters in our democracy. And so these are retention elections. So it's a yes, no, rather than a Democrat versus a Republican. All three candidates combined have raised around two and a half million dollars. So very little compared to these national races that we're talking about or even a race for Congress. But the impact could be huge come 2028 or thereafter.

[A]

Right. Right. So we are obviously a pro democracy show. And I want to ask you a philosophical question. The work that you do feels a little bit like picking stocks or like you're an industry analyst giving me a buy recommendation. Is this the way to do democracy?

[B]

It's a very good question. And we talk a lot about the impact of money in politics. I don't see oath as a lesser of two evils sort of necessity. I see it as a very empowering tool for people who want to shape the elections that are shaping their life. Billionaires have full time teams telling them where to spend their money and how to.

[A]

So they have their in house oath.

[B]

They all have their in house oath. Elon Musk has a whole team of people to help him do that. Why shouldn't grassroots donors have the same thing? Right. There's a coordination issue that if you have $100 million coming from three people, they can sit at a table and make decisions about how to allocate it. But if you have that hundred million dollars coming from 10 million donors, way harder to get those dollars where they need to be in order to combat the influence of that billionaires. A hundred million. And so that's how we see Oath is we're putting a thumb on the scale for grassroots donors to make their dollars just as impactful in the collective as people who are writing giant checks. Of course, we're huge proponents of campaign finance reform. It's the one issue that I want more than anything to see progress on before I die. And I think that it's genuinely a generational project. It's not going to be done by 2035. I don't see that. But even after campaign finance reform, I do anticipate that people will still need to be making these choices. Because even here in New York, the example that we were referencing earlier, people are still giving. Even though it's a publicly funded election, people are still giving to these candidates and still need to find where their dollars can have impact to advance their values. And so that's where I see a perennial need for oath is that people have goals, people have values, and we want to help them get from A to B with the resources that they have to give.

[A]

Right, yeah, that's a great answer. I mean, to say that it puts the thumb on the scale for the grassroots donor, that's really very elegantly put. So we're just saying that elections are just a few weeks away now. We are in October of 2025 and we talked already about Zoran's very online campaign. So what's the impact of his campaign on other Democratic races across the country? And by that I mean organizing, you know, all of the canvassing, his brilliant social media posts and honestly his platform that promises to improve material living conditions, which I think not a lot of candidates really are talking about. So what do you say?

[B]

I think Mamdani's campaign and his presence in the national conversation has crystallized for a lot of Democrats, maybe a hot take here, but that we really are in the middle of a revolution for what the Democratic Party is and what the Democratic Party stands for. There's a battle going on certainly over that answer, but there's not much debate anymore that that battle is happening and a different party is going to emerge on the other side of it. And so what was revolutionary about his campaign that's impacting the whole electoral landscape is that he changed, as you pointed, to the core message or values that he wanted to be the beating heart of his candidacy, around affordability that Democrats have struggled to message on in recent cycles. The messenger being extremely different, that we're at a point where people are not seeing themselves, especially young people, are not seeing themselves reflected in the leadership of the Democratic Party. And he represented a new generation of people who said, we're ready to pass the torch, and you can either pass it or we're gonna take it. And sort of embodying that energy. And then finally, it's in the tactics, it's in the. Where he's communicating how he shows up in people's homes and news feeds, which is foreign to how the Democratic Party has been run for the last 15, 20 years. And so I think on all three fronts, right, message, messenger and medium, he's charting a new path for what it can look like. He's not the only one. I wanna be clear. I don't think that he invented these things.

[A]

No, definitely not.

[B]

But he crystallized it in people's minds. Being in a place like New York that's so visible, so closely watched by the Democratic Party, it created this high visibility moment for us to have a lot of proxy fights about who we are through this one mayoral election. So I think that's maybe more of a recognition of the moment than it is a sort of answer on what the direction looks like. But I certainly believe that right now, Democrats are in the equivalent of our Tea Party era.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That resulted in Donald Trump. And I think it's incumbent on all of us to participate in the conversation to ensure that we produce something better for the country and better for each other than how Donald Trump came out of the Republicans own revolution.

[A]

Right. No, I totally agree with you. You know, this is the mission of the show, is to get people to take civic action and participate and be in there. Because if you're not in there, then your voice is not being represented. Only you can do that.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So every week on future hindsight, I ask my guests to share A civic spark. One small step we can all take to be more empowered and ignite collective change. So what's a good way to turn the insights that you've just shared with us into action?

[B]

My number one recommendation here would be to find a election that you've never participated in before and get involved. The timing probably lends itself to being elections happening in November of 2025 where you can go get involved in a Supreme Court race in Pennsylvania, the race for Public Service Commission in Georgia, for the legislature in New Jersey or Virginia for governor, the ballot measure in California. There are all of these high impact opportunities that are not what we're talking about all the time. Not Congress, not the Senate, not the White House. But being involved will actively demonstrate the real impact that these races have for people in a way that I think and in my experience will change how they think about the electoral system overall, help people focus more locally and more broadly than just here are the two things that matter. How do we win Congress? How do we win the White House? And taking a small step of being involved, knowing who one of these candidates is. Just know their name. And being involved, either through donating or through volunteering in their election in an off year is a great way to remind yourself that you have more power in our electoral system than you think.

[A]

Yeah, that's well put. So, last question. Looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?

[B]

I feel hopeful by the number of people who have stepped up already to participate in this dialogue about what we want the future of the party to look like. There are organizations that have recruited tens of thousands of new candidates to run, most of whom are young, our millennials and Gen Z. And at the same time, there's a flood of people raising their hands to say, I don't like what's happening. I maybe sat out in 2024 or wasn't inspired, and now I'm done and I want to participate. Like, let me in, coach. And that is what's getting me really hopeful, is the amount of energy coming from through protests. You have things like the no Kings protest that have set records as the largest demonstration in US History. People are upset and building community in order to combat the triggers of that. And that in all of its various forms is the thing that keeps me going every day when it feels really hard to be involved in this work, whether it's your job or as a volunteer and lover of our democracy.

[A]

Yeah, here, here. This is really hopeful. I mean, I do think that a lot of the work that has come out of the 2016 election is still working for us, although when Donald Trump won the second time, I think people felt very, very defeated. But I think the silver lining in his victory actually is that people do want change. I think that is what they voted for, including Democrats, meaning Democrats also want change. Everybody wants change. This is also wise as a front runner. Exactly. Because people want something different. They don't want Cuomo. They want somebody who is the status quo candidate who's gonna deliver more of the same or we think is going to deliver more of the same.

[B]

I couldn't agree more. I think that after the first Trump administration, people wanted a safe bet to turn the page on what many of us saw as a dark chapter. And now after Trump 2.0, which is infinitely darker, I think people are looking for a less safe, more bold vision of what it looks like to turn the page, not just on this administration, but on this moment of division and ugliness that has been sort of injected into our politics and looking for something that is more hopeful but also is a more bold vision for how we can actualize our values in a way that shows up in people's lives every day.

[A]

Yeah, you're here. Well, thank you, Brian, for joining me on Future Hindsight. It was really a pleasure to have you on the show.

[B]

Thank you so much. I'll hope to be back soon.

[A]

Yes, hopefully. Brian Derrick is the co founder of Oath. Remember, civic action doesn't have to be complicated. It's about small steps that spark progress, like sharing this episode with a friend. Let's recap this week's Civic Spark and fire up our collective power. Find an election that you've never participated in before and get involved. Check out the Supreme Court race in Pennsylvania or the ballot measure in California, the kinds of races that aren't talked about all the time. We always encourage you to focus on the state and local levels, but that doesn't just mean your own backyard. Your power matters across the country, and your involvement is a great way to prove the strength of that power. Next week on Future Hindsight, we're joined by Todd Schulte. He's the president of Forward Us, a bipartisan political organization that believes America's families, communities and economy thrive when more individuals are able to achieve their full potential. That's next time on Future Hindsight now. Be sure to follow us on your podcast app so you'll never miss an episode. We're here to build your civic action toolkit every week, so follow Future Hindsight now and we'll come right to you. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, see clearly, act boldly and spark the change you want to see. This episode was produced by Zach, Travis and me.

[B]

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.