MOTHER JONES could use your help on this reporting project 25JAN20

MOTHER JONES is asking for help from everyone who has received political mailings for the 2020 presidential elections, see the below and participate if you want.....

I'm digging into something, and I'm hoping the Mother Jones community can help.

The 2020 Democratic primary is already underway. In a little more than a week, Iowans will convene in houses and gymnasiums for the first-in-the-nation caucus. In Minnesota, early voting has already begun for the state’s March 3 primary. Which means that, across the country, mailboxes are starting to sag under the weight of several metric tons of direct mail from presidential candidates.

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. Just take a photo of the mailer—the full thing, if you can—and email it to our tipline, scoop@motherjones.com, along with your home state.

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. We want to know who is sending what, and to whom.

Tips can be anonymous, and we’ll be sure to redact any of your identifying details from the photos before publishing them.

So, do us a favor and grab your phone if you've already got a pile of mail stacked up, or keep this in mind the next time you see a piece of mail that makes you cringe, makes you laugh, or makes you wonder who the hell it's even from or what it wants you to believe.

Thanks for reading, and for helping me get a glimpse into what folks are receiving.

Tim Murphy
Senior Reporter
Mother Jones New York bureau