Recently I posted a spreadsheet that summarizes the mid-year campaign finance reports of all the candidates for Raleigh City Council this year. Here I want to offer my analysis of the money that has been raised and my opinion on where the race for each seat stands. Again, this is my opinion (although I believe based on facts and reality), I have already stated who I am supporting in my post announcing that I am not running this year.



Why does money matter?

Whether you like it or not, and almost no one does, you can’t run a successful campaign (political or otherwise) without money. A political campaign is just a marketing campaign to convince people to get out to vote and to vote the way you want. In a city of a half-million people, the only way your message can get to everyone, or even to just the 50,000 people that voted in 2017, is through various means of paid advertising. The candidates that have more money to get their name and message in front of more people more times, have a much better chance of winning an election. Remember, if you are reading this, you are probably not an average voter. The average voter spends very little, if any, time researching candidates and makes their decisions based on campaign marketing that has been hand-fed to them. Even though successful campaigns need a lot of money, it does not mean the candidate needs to be independently wealthy. It doesn’t hurt to be a good salesperson, however. Successful candidates spend the majority of their time raising money. Long before they start trying to convince voters to get out and vote for them, they spend many hours over many months convincing their friends, co-workers, neighbors, and everyone in their personal network to contribute money to their campaign. They will not stop raising money until the election is over. It’s not an easy task, but many people have been very successful at raising money and winning elections while not having any of their own money to contribute (having a good network to start with is a huge plus, if not a necessity, however). A very small percentage of the money that is sitting in the campaign accounts of candidates for Raleigh City Council this year has come from the individual candidates.

MAYOR