Volunteers and improvisation fill gaps left by scarce campaign cash
In Bowling Green, Kentucky, Megan Wingfield apologized to a gas station clerk while she labored to unpeel and count a thin stack of bills. The tally eventually reached $23, which she counted on for half a tank of gas to drive her 2013 Jeep to an evening campaign event. The 32-year-old Democrat and first-time candidate is running against a well-funded incumbent in Kentucky’s Second Congressional District. She recently pawned her power tools “to make ends meet.”
The imbalance comes amid what The Wall Street Journal described as the most expensive midterm cycle in history. AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm, said candidates and their backers are spending nearly $12 billion to swing races the report described as freighted with existential importance. The Journal said most candidates with little money and little name recognition do not stand a chance against better-funded opponents, while also noting that they can affect races in many ways.
Wingfield’s headquarters is a nook in the one-bedroom apartment she shares with two dogs and a cat. A ringlight for recording social-media videos and a laptop propped on a raccoon trap furnish the space. “We’ve had to be resourceful,” Wingfield said. “When you talk about a shoestring budget—that pretty much hits the nail on the head.”
Her victory in May’s crowded Democratic primary brought 41% of the vote, validation and a $5,000 check from the United Auto Workers. She used the check for lawn signs and a banner. She also paid her campaign manager, Cole Foster, a pittance. Foster works part time as a Lyft driver, lives in New Orleans and discovered Wingfield on TikTok.
Fundraising remained harder for a candidate without money, Wingfield said. She said of progressive groups, “Unless you raise $100,000, they won’t endorse you,” adding, “They won’t look at you.” Wingfield cited phone banks and radio ads among the conventions a traditional campaign would have used: “Pretty much anything you can think of that a traditional campaign would have done, you can just throw that out the window.” She also said, “I probably will never spend money again on print because people just throw that stuff away.”
The 32-year-old is a mechanic who works part time as a caregiver. She entered local activism after Trump’s victory and spoke at anti-ICE protests before running. She also grew up gay and poor in rural Kentucky. Much of her campaign money goes to gasoline as she drives Interstate 65 to events, a comparison The Wall Street Journal drew to a struggling country singer chasing the next gig. Her affordability pitch was direct: “If there’s one thing we can collectively agree on it’s that none of us can afford to pay our bills.”
Her opponent, Republican Rep. Brett Guthrie, chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and his campaign raised nearly $6 million during the election cycle. Wingfield has few illusions about the gap. She said coming within a dozen points would qualify as success and might springboard a better-funded run in 2028.
In southern New Jersey’s First Congressional District, Republican contractor Damon Galdo could afford only one billboard for his challenge to Democratic incumbent Donald Norcross. The billboard cost $2,100. Galdo, 45, turned the man cave in his attached home in West Deptford into a campaign headquarters while his wife, Heather Ann, looked on. “I don’t have his money or his name recognition,” he said, adding, “I feel good about what I’m doing.”
The Wall Street Journal described Norcross as a powerful figure in New Jersey’s Democratic machine. Galdo said his political career began with a dare from a friend who makes websites. He lost the Republican primary in 2022, lost again in 2024 and considered sitting out this race until local party bosses tapped him. Galdo said the bosses offered little money, and the Republican National Committee refused to provide funds even after he appealed to former co-chair Lara Trump. “They look at New Jersey as a lost cause,” he said.
Federal Election Commission filings showed that Galdo had raised just over $16,000, while Norcross’s campaign had $2.4 million in mid-October. Galdo called Norcross “a juggernaut.” After unsuccessful attempts to arrange a live debate with Norcross, Galdo staged a livestreamed debate against a life-size cardboard cutout. His aide Frank Ciabbatoni, 15, said, “He’s one of the hardest-working candidates I’ve ever worked with.” Galdo said, “He’s a prodigy,” then added, “I have to chauffeur him around. He doesn’t have his license yet.”
Galdo and his crew also took his campaign into Norcross territory, stopping at a library in Camden, a Democratic stronghold. About a dozen people attended a “meet the candidate” event in a side room, where a mouse scurried under a door as trays of macaroni-and-cheese and fried chicken were set out. Galdo contrasted his work as a tradesman with the student loans burdening his wife and promised to bring unions and vocational training to Camden’s schools if elected.
Many candidates with limited resources rely on friends to run their campaigns for free. For Dione Sims, a Democrat running in Texas’ deep-red 25th district, consultant Ruby ElBasha filled that role. ElBasha was a veteran of the Biden and Bernie Sanders campaigns. She said she came out of retirement after being drawn to Sims, the granddaughter of a civil rights icon. She described her friends’ reaction: “My friends are saying: ‘Girl, you still working on that broke girl’s campaign?’”
One recent evening, Wingfield drove along Interstate 65 with the wind beating against her Jeep’s ragtop to a meeting of the Hardin County Democratic Women’s Club in the basement of a community center near Fort Knox. She had not been invited to speak but was called to the podium without notes. Plates held fried chicken, green beans and potato salad. Wingfield criticized Trump, spoke of “beautiful moments in such hard, trying times” and noted the improbability of someone who raised $4,000 for the primary standing before the group. She said women were “inherently familiar” with cleaning up messes they did not create.
Jackie Banks-Lewis, one of the attendees, said, “She did good.” “That was my first time hearing her,” Banks-Lewis added. The three campaigns described by The Wall Street Journal operated far below the scale of the $12 billion cycle, but the paper said candidates with little money or name recognition can still affect races in many ways. Wingfield’s own measure was more limited: a close race now and the possibility of a better-funded second campaign in 2028. “This is really the most satisfying work I’ve ever done,” she said.