> From what I've seen, spending has almost no effect on competitive elections. Groups like Fairshake are more about punishing candidates who take opposition positions.
A large number of elections for the House of Representatives aren't competitive. The candidate from the incumbent party is going to win no matter how bad they are and no matter how good the other candidates are. No amount of money spent on that election will change things.
However, in a large number of those districts only a small fraction of the voters from that party vote in the primaries or attend the caucuses where that party chooses its candidate. There usually isn't a lot of spending on this. A well funded primary challenger has a very good chance of knocking the incumbent out in the primary or at the caucus.
The threat of this is how Trump keeps the Republicans in the House almost completely under his control. Look at all those Republicans in the House who voted for the "Big Beautiful Bill" and then went home to get completely excoriated by their constituents at town halls for not holding out to get the parts of the bill that were terrible for those constituents removed.
They knew that would be the reaction. But Trump told them that if they didn't vote for it or delayed it to make more changes he'd fund a primary challenger.
A large number of elections for the House of Representatives aren't competitive. The candidate from the incumbent party is going to win no matter how bad they are and no matter how good the other candidates are. No amount of money spent on that election will change things.
However, in a large number of those districts only a small fraction of the voters from that party vote in the primaries or attend the caucuses where that party chooses its candidate. There usually isn't a lot of spending on this. A well funded primary challenger has a very good chance of knocking the incumbent out in the primary or at the caucus.
The threat of this is how Trump keeps the Republicans in the House almost completely under his control. Look at all those Republicans in the House who voted for the "Big Beautiful Bill" and then went home to get completely excoriated by their constituents at town halls for not holding out to get the parts of the bill that were terrible for those constituents removed.
They knew that would be the reaction. But Trump told them that if they didn't vote for it or delayed it to make more changes he'd fund a primary challenger.