Column: Can you campaign without money?

Running for office can take a lot out of somebody.

It goes without saying that being politically engaged in the public eye requires confidence in your beliefs and incredibly thick skin, but there’s an even larger barrier to entry in our current political system.

In order to run a successful political campaign, you need to have a lot of money.

Taking the time to run for a federal position often means stepping away from your job for the duration of your campaign. Prospective politicians need to be in a stable enough financial position where they can live for up to 6 months without any income, something that only the richest Americans can afford to do.

Depending on the level of office you’re seeking, running a successful campaign can require you to spend thousands, or even millions, of dollars on political advertisements, salaries of paid staffers, transportation all over the district, state or country for speaking engagements and an entirely new wardrobe of politically palatable clothing. 

According to OpenSecrets, the average Senate candidate spends $15.7 million on their campaign, while House candidates spend just over $2 million on average. 

In addition to self-funding, this money can come from anywhere, whether it be from individual donors and grassroots organizations or massive super PACs and wealthy corporations.

Imagine what it must be like to spend all of that time and money just to lose. None of that money is coming back, and no more donors are coming in to help you pay your bills.

This is a risky game that only those with a sufficient safety net are willing to play. 

And, if you win, you’re not in a much better position. Congresspeople are beholden to the whims of the interest groups that will fund their reelection campaigns. Good luck trying to vote for gun control reforms if the NRA is sending you millions of dollars in exchange for your vote.

This is, unfortunately, the current state of our federal election system. You need to be rich to get into Congress, and you need to protect the interests of the rich to stay in Congress.

But luckily, non-rich citizens are not completely powerless. 

Citizens in America have strength in their numbers and their votes. In a political field filled with millionaires and billionaires, it’s likely impossible to vote plutocracy into nonexistence. 

Still, votes are the citizens’ only institutional power against a tyrannical government. Choosing not to use that power, limited as it may be, is essentially cosigning an unjust status quo.

Beyond just voting within the system, Americans vastly underestimate the importance and accessibility of state and local government. 

A local mayor or city councilor likely has much more influence on your day-to-day life than Congress or even the president does, but most people don’t even know where their town hall is.

If you want to see change in your community, show up to a city council meeting and make your voice heard. Or, better yet, run for city council yourself.

Many local offices do not have the same financial barriers that were discussed previously, and some positions are recognized as part-time, allowing you to keep your day job while affecting change. 

There is no invisible qualification or standard that makes the politicians you see on TV any more worthy of power than you or me. If you are a person invested in bettering a community and willing to take the time to do it, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be getting involved in local politics.

This is true no matter how young you are.

Members of Gen Z are starting to run for office in the 2022 midterms, eagerly taking millennials’ place as the youngest politically active generation. 

Beginning the slow and arduous process of evoking real institutional change must come from the bottom up. While the richest may still dominate the national level, with some luck, a politically active populace unwilling to give up our seat at the table will reverberate upwards for elections to come.