This month at the America Votes State Summit, I attended a panel about the 2026 Midterms, where there was some talk about “investments.”

All of the panel members were from organizations that exist to win elections. To be fair, the whole conference is about winning elections.

Several panel members talked about making “investments” in races and states. Hearing campaign people say “investment” usually makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

So, I raised my hand to ask a question. I didn’t have it together enough at the time to record the question, so I recreated the moment in this video.

The point of the question was to drill down on what they meant by “investment.”

Because we have very different definitions.

There was only time for one person to answer the question. A woman from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee had a good answer – for what her job is. She talked about getting a jump on opposition research and staffing up early in battleground states, which I was glad to hear. If there were some organizers on the panel, I bet the answers would have been different.

Take a listen to the video and tell me what your answer would be.