Candid counts nearly as many charities in red districts as in blue ones before the midterms

Charities sit almost evenly on both sides of the country's political divide: Candid counts 687,667 in blue and blue-leaning congressional districts and 688,726 in red and red-leaning ones, it reported on October 28, days before Tuesday's midterm elections.

Candid is the nonprofit that tracks data on US charities and foundations. The count, published in a post by David Wolcheck, a lead data analyst there, covers the roughly 1.6 million 501(c)(3) charitable organizations among the 1.9 million tax-exempt organizations in the United States.

How did Candid sort charities by politics?

By the partisan lean of the district where each one is based. Candid used the 2026 Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI), a Cook Political Report score of each district's partisan lean, based, Candid says, on the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. Scores run from D+40 to R+33. Some charities could not be matched to a district because of limited address information, and Washington, D.C.'s 10,929 were left out because the District has no voting member of Congress.

What does the split look like?

Close to even. The table is our arrangement of Candid's figures, with our own arithmetic in the last two rows.

Candid does not break out that remainder, so we cannot say how much of it sits in evenly divided districts. What the figures do show is that neither party represents a nonprofit-light electorate. The states with the most charities per person, about 100 per 10,000 residents, are Montana, Vermont, Wyoming and Iowa, Candid found. D.C. has 216.

Where do nonprofit jobs matter most?

In the District and the Northeast. Nonprofits employed about 12.8 million people in 2022, 9.9% of private-sector jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Candid's post describes the figure as about 10% of all employment; the BLS frames it as a share of private-sector jobs, which is the measure we use.

What can nonprofit leaders take from it?

In our view, a talking point and a caution. The talking point: whoever wins on Tuesday, every member of Congress represents hundreds or thousands of charities, and Candid offers a free tool that shows the count by district, which is worth sharing with a newly elected office. The caution: data about districts is not a reason to take sides. A 501(c)(3) can register voters and host a candidate forum, but it cannot back a candidate. Candid's earlier work found that democracy grants are about 1.3% of foundation giving, a reminder that most of this sector's money goes to services, not politics.