The Model

While explosions in small-dollar contributions have been working wonders supporting federal candidates in certain swing states in recent years, almost no money flows to most statehouse candidates.

And since it’s statehouses where most of the attacks on democracy and extremism have been doing the most damage, the lack of meaningful support for most statehouse candidates turns out to be a huge problem for democracy. Even worse, that lack of support is leaving huge numbers of these districts (the very districts where the most damage is being done) not contested at all. (Because why run if no one cares enough to support your candidacy?) And that, of course, makes the problem even worse. A downward spiral of extremism and anti-democracy, wholly uninterrupted by the other side or even a modicum of accountability.

In my book Saving Democracy, I equate the situation to a soccer game where one team is always on offense (extreme statehouses are the forwards, shooting at the goal non-stop). And the other team hardly plays defense against them: