September 17, 2020

Hey, Voters, Keep Sending Us Your Political Mail!

Scott Varley/Digital First Media/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images

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If you can remember as far back as January 2020, way back then, we at Mother Jones asked you to share your political mail. As my colleague Tim wrote at the time:

Facebook, for all its faults (actually, because of all its faults), makes it extremely easy to search political advertisements. Anyone can see what states are being targeted, how much reach an advertisement had, and how much money went into it. But there’s no such database for old-fashioned political mail. You know the kind—glossy, filled with impeccably lit photos of the candidate’s smiling family. Or perhaps improperly darkened, ominous-looking images of their opponent. Campaigns and outside groups often say stuff in mailers they don’t say in public—it’s where they show their true colors. (Remember those unseemly Ted Cruz mailers in 2016? Or this super-racist attack on an Asian-American candidate in 2018?) It’d be easier if campaigns and other organizations just sent us all this stuff, but they don’t, and so we need your help: Did you get a piece of political mail that caught your eye for one reason or another? Send it to us.

The instructions are simple:

  1. Take a photo of the mailer—the full thing, if you can
  2. Email it to our tipline, scoop@motherjones.com
  3. Use in the subject line: “Mailers” 
  4. Tell us your home state in the subject line or body of the email

We’re looking for mailers of all kinds, be they from presidential candidates or congressional candidates or would-be sheriffs and county assessors, be they about ballot initiatives or issues relevant to the election, be they funny or tacky or monstrous. Tips can be anonymous, and we’ll be sure to redact any identifying details from the photos before publishing them.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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