Thanks to our local meetup groups for doing this! Quick lookup version:
AUSTIN: Guide here
BOSTON: Guide here
CHICAGO: Guide here
LOS ANGELES: Guide here
NEW YORK CITY: Guide here
OAKLAND/BERKELEY: Guide here
PHILADELPHIA: Guide here
SAN FRANCISCO: Guide here
SEATTLE: Guide here
Longer version with commentary:
AUSTIN: Guide here. Part of the fun of this exercise is seeing what format each group came up with, so I appreciated Austin’s section of “Races Where You Should Consider Voting For The Other Party”, which highlighted elections where one candidate was so bad that even committed Dems/Republicans should consider crossing the aisle (usually this was because of corruption, like the candidate who “made millions of dollars off of oil companies that she is supposed to be responsible for enforcing rules on”). Highlight was their recommendation of Mayor Kirk Watson, even though “the [meetup] organizer's mom, a transportation engineer . . . has a long history sending Watson good highway designs that he vetoes because of his well-connected friends.”
BOSTON: Guide here. This group went above and beyond - I blame all the strivers at Harvard - and have eighteen pages worth of discussion, including majority opinions and dissents on all issues. Highlights include a proposition on legalizing psychedelics and the hotly-contested Elizabeth Warren vs. John Deaton Senate race - but kudos to them for also offering impassioned and well-thought out opinions on extremely boring questions like whether the state auditor should be allowed to audit the legislature, or whether sectoral bargaining beats firm-level unionization. The best candidate name on this ballot is "Mohammed Bah".
CHICAGO: Guide here. Chicago local government has some drama this year; the entire school board resigned as part of an ongoing fight; the mayor and his teachers union allies want to fire the more technocratic and reform-minded school administrator Pedro Martinez, but Martinez isn't going. ACX Chicago tries to navigate the situation and endorse candidates for the ten open school board seats. Other questions facing the city include mandating that insurances provide unlimited IVF (the group is weakly against) and using taxpayer money to buy the Bears a new stadium (don't do it!). The most interesting candidate name on the ballot is "Shannon O'Malley" - not because this is an unusual name in itself, but because Mr. O'Malley is a Polish guy who changed his name to something female- and Irish-sounding after learning that Irish women are a sympathetic demographic who do well in elections. Thanks to ACX Chicago for keeping us abreast of such important political news!
LOS ANGELES: Guide here. Los Angeles is almost party-line Democrat, but manages to deviate from consensus in a few places, including going against celebrity liberal district attorney George Gascon. Gascon was previously San Francisco DA (sandwiched between Kamala Harris and Chesa Boudin), attracted both furor and adulation for his anti-incarceration/soft-on-crime policies, quit, moved to Los Angeles to take care of his aging mother, and then became Los Angeles DA the next year! He is a fascinating character, and someone should write his biography, but apparently Los Angeles Rationality is tired of him. The group did however support increasing taxes to fund anti-homelessness programs, saying that LA's past anti-homelessness programs have a history of actually working.
NEW YORK CITY: Guide here. Kudos to Overcoming Bias NYC for their hard work, including actually meeting with one of the candidates. There aren't many interesting races in New York this year, but they urge you to stay tuned for a likely special mayoral election now that Eric Adams has been accused of corruption.
OAKLAND/BERKELEY: Guide here. Both LA and Oakland weighed in on California’s statewide races; here’s a comparison of their opinions:
The only one with frank disagreement is Prop 36, which increases penalties for various crimes. I’m hoping to publish a guest post on this one later this week. Kudos to ACX Oakland for including district maps and recommendations for various transit and utility positions.
PHILADELPHIA: Guide here. Finally, a swing state! Philadelphia Rationality endorses Harris for President. But they pick Republican candidate Dave McCormick for Senate after his Democratic opponent, incumbent Bob Casey, earned their ire for various ill-thought-out progressive legislation like anti-price-gouging laws; McCormick also seems like a rare Republican capable of standing up to Trump. Just because you’re a swing state doesn’t mean your vote always counts; Philadelphia itself is so heavily Democratic that the group says “voting for [its Congressional representatives] should be seen more as a form of self-expression than a process to choose a candidate, so we recommend voting for whichever party makes you feel best”.
SAN FRANCISCO: Guide here. I got confused because San Francisco has their own list of local propositions which are suspiciously similar to the statewide propositions (for example, both sets have an education bond first). That's not all that's confusing - California has a long history of propositions that invalidate past ballot propositions, but this is the first time I've ever seen them try this during the same election cycle. Proposition L raises taxes on ride-share companies, but Proposition M simplifies the tax system in various ways including cancelling Proposition L. If both pass, then whichever gets more votes wins. This creates a weird situation where several interest groups have strong opinions that both propositions should pass but that L should pass by more votes than M; how do you even make a voter guide for a situation like that? Maybe you should recommend stochastic voting - tell people to vote yes on L, then roll a dice, and vote yes on M unless they get a 1? The San Francisco meetup group takes a simpler path and just recommends yes on both.
SEATTLE: Guide here. This one is a spreadsheet, which is probably merciful given how many positions Seattleites have to vote on. The best candidate name on this ballot is “Dave Upthegrove”, running for Public Lands Commissioner ie forest management; not only is this not a fake name, but the Upthegroves are apparently one of the oldest American families with a history in the country dating back to 1683. Second place goes to “Justin Greywolf” - yes, he is a libertarian, and yes, ACX Seattle endorses him. I don’t know how he came by his name, but his Twitter header picture is suggestive:
Thanks again to everyone who worked on this. I don’t regret the way I managed things this time - I think it was good to have one very simple test run so everyone knows how it works - but next election year (2026) I plan to get in touch with organizers very early (late 2025) about the primary elections (presumably early 2026). They can plan something around their city’s schedule, send it to me a few weeks before their city’s primary, and I’ll put it on the nearest open thread. Then we can do something like this again for the general, with everyone knowing the deadline in advance and having more time.
Try to remember whether these guides affected your voting decisions - I’ll be asking about this on the upcoming survey.
