NO, THE PROBLEM ISN'T EMOTIONAL GIVING BY INDIVIDUAL DEMOCRATIC DONORS

In a Vox interview with Sean Illing, James Carville says that Democrats do political giving all wrong.

Just look at how Democrats organize and spend money. For Christ’s sake, [South Carolina Democrat] Jaime Harrison raised over $100 million only to lose his Senate race to Lindsey Graham by 10 points. Amy McGrath runs for Senate in Kentucky and raises over $90 million only to get crushed by Mitch McConnell.

They were always going to lose those races, but Democrats keep doing this stupid shit. They’re too damn emotional. Democrats obsess over high-profile races they can’t win because that’s where all the attention is. We’re addicted to hopeless causes.

What about the secretary of state in Wisconsin? Or the attorney general race in Michigan? How much money are Democrats and progressives around the country sending to those candidates? I’m telling you, if Democrats are worried about voting rights and election integrity, then these are the sorts of races they should support and volunteer for, because this is where the action is and this is where things will be decided.

You know who is paying attention to these races? The Republican Party. Last I checked, Republicans raised $33 million for secretary of state races around the country. The Democrats had until recently raised $1 million. I think it’s now up to $4 million. That’s the story, right there. That’s the difference, right there.

This suggests that Democratic donors are naive dreamers while Republican donors are ruthless pragmatists. But Republican donors throw away plenty of money on hopeless causes, as FiveThirtyEight's Geoffrey Skelley noted last year.

... despite never having held elected office or run in a high-profile campaign, six Republican challengers raised at least $2 million in [2020] House races they then lost by anywhere from 20 to 45 points. Raising mostly from individual donors, Republican challenger Lacy Johnson brought in the most, $12.2 million, running against Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar. Other Republican challengers raised large sums as well: John Cummings raised $11.2 million against New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joe Collins raised $10.6 million against California Rep. Maxine Waters, Kim Klacik raised $8.3 million against Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume, Eric Early raised $4.1 million against California Rep. Adam Schiff and Laura Loomer raised $2.3 million against Florida Rep. Lois Frankel.

All of these candidates lost in 20-point to 45-point blowouts -- the outcomes were never in doubt. Yet GOP donors gave them big money, emotionally. And while in retrospect it seems unwise for Democratic donors to have given so much money to Jamie Harrison, remember that he was tied with Lindsey Graham or trailing by 1 point in four consecutive polls released in August and September 2020. Amy McGrath was far more of a long shot, but she got within 5 points of Mitch McConnell in one August poll, and it was widely reported that McConnell was unpopular in his home state -- his job disapproval was 51% in an October 2020 poll, and it had been as high as 74% in a 2017 survey. Also, a "blue wave" was widely predicted for 2020 -- sometimes the word was "tsunami" -- so maybe it was the punditocracy that was to blame, not Democratic donors.

Carville is more or less correct about those donations to party groups backing secretary of state candidates, but he's comparing apples and oranges. Carville says,

Last I checked, Republicans raised $33 million for secretary of state races around the country. The Democrats had until recently raised $1 million. I think it’s now up to $4 million.

But here's the truth about that comparison (with emphasis added):

The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which handles secretary of state races among other state-level contents, and its strategic policy partner, the State Government Leadership Foundation, raised a record $14.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, bringing the groups’ annual total to $33.3 million in the off-election year....

On the other side of the aisle, the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State (DASS) raked in $1 million during the first six months of 2021, a marked improvement from raising $202,000 in the first half of 2019, according to a report released on Wednesday from the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.

So the Democratic group that's been outraised is just for secretaries of state, while the Republican group, as SourceWatch notes,

includes the Republican Lieutenant Governors Association, the Future Majority Project, the Republican Secretaries of State Committee, the Judicial Fairness Initiative, and the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee.... Its website describes its mission as "electing Republicans to the offices of lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state legislator, the judiciary and other down ticket races."

And yes, the Democratic group for secretaries of state raised $4.5 million last year, and expects to have $15 million for this election.
So Democratic donors have gotten the message.
On the subject of that GOP group, SourceWatch writes:

The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) is a 527 group which surged onto the political scene in 2010 in an effort to elect right-wing politicians to state offices under the direction of former George W. Bush advisor Ed Gillespie, who is closely tied to Karl Rove. RSLC was a leader in 2010 redistricting efforts favorable to Republicans and received a massive infusion of cash from Rove's American Crossroads group....

It appears that Republicans have been eating our lunch at this level of politics not because individual Democratic donors are silly people ruled by their emotions, but because Republican operatives have understood the importance of politics at this level for more than a decade and Democratic operatives haven't. If this is a Democratic failure, it's a failure by political pros, not individual donors. Republican pros were smart. Democratic pros -- people Carville knows personally -- weren't. Ordinary Democrats didn't mess this up.