Before we dig in, I want to share with you that I recently received orders to return to active duty in the Marine Corps and am reporting to the Pentagon tomorrow morning. It’s temporary, to cover for an unforeseen circumstance in the unit I am affiliated with in the Marine Reserve. And before you worry about me – please don’t! This is a good thing! I’ll still be able to do the Substack in my spare time, I get to serve my country (which I love), and I could really use the paycheck after not working for three years while campaigning. Which brings me to what I want to talk about today: running for office as a normal person. By that, I mean running for office as someone without family or personal wealth and not already holding an office that essentially pays you to run for your next office and that you can use as a media platform. I have been asked A LOT about this since running, and have done several phone calls with people to talk it over, including one today, so I want to highlight a few of the things that worked for me and what you need to consider if you ever want to do this. This is going to be non-partisan advice and will be relevant to you no matter what party you are in or what you are thinking about running for. If anyone has follow-up questions, you can ask them in the comments and if there is enough interest I can do a second round on this topic in the future. For background, I ran for state rep in 2006 when I was 23/24 years old in my hometown of Jefferson City, MO in a 70/30-ish GOP district. Against those odds, I got no help from the state party, had no money, and lost 44-56. Then from 2021 to 2024 I ran for US Senate in Missouri, first losing in 2022 by five points in the Democratic primary against a Busch beer heiress with universal name recognition who heavily outspent us on TV, and then losing the general election this last time in the red wave of 2024. I believe that people deserve options when they vote, and I attempted to give them what I believed to be a better option in each of my races, even if I didn’t win. Also, if you’re there when lightning strikes, it would be magical, and I’m a dreamer. So here are seven things to keep in mind while deciding whether to run or during a run. 1. Be prepared to lose. I believed that I could win every race I entered, even though the odds were long. And while that was important to me, particularly since I was asking so many people to support the campaign, I don’t think it’s a requirement when running for office. That may sound controversial (as might a few things I say later), but I think it’s true. You can run knowing you are going to lose and never believing you have a chance. Some people do it for fame or attention, because they want to become a TV pundit, for vanity, because they don’t think the incumbent should get a free pass, because they have something to prove, or whatever. If you want to run for those reasons, there is nothing stopping you and history shows you can succeed. I’ll talk about motivations for running in number 4 below, but I am saving that for now because I think it’s really important to understand that whether your seat is a sure thing for you because you cleared the primary field in a safe seat, whether it’s winnable but contested, or whether it’s a long shot, you need to be prepared both mentally and financially to lose. Way more people lose running for office than win (incumbent advantage, multiple people running for a seat, etc.). If you can’t survive a loss, you shouldn’t do it. Which brings me to number two. 2. Have personal financial security. Remember, there is a good chance you will lose, so you have to have a way to survive that, especially if you have a family. This is probably the number one reason why normal people don’t run for office and why most people who run for office, particularly higher office, are rich, are from political families (usually meaning they’re rich), have someone rich backing them up, married rich, or have family wealth. Because money is everything in politics, both for running and paying for a campaign, and also for surviving personally during a campaign. Every time I’ve talked to a normal person who is thinking about running for office, this is the thing we talk about the most. It’s the biggest barrier to normal people running, winning, and then representing us in Congress. It’s a reason why so many sell out in their pursuit of lower offices in order to climb the corrupt political ladder. Because that’s the path that’s ready built for a normal person. The system sucks. But there are ways. You can choose an office that doesn’t take as much time and/or money to run for. I’ll talk about choosing your office later. You can be self-employed or own a business. You can have a job that lets you work while you run. A note on that: there are a decent number of people who have jobs that let them focus a lot of time on running while still paying them. Technically, that could be a campaign finance contribution from your employer if they let you do that, so there is risk involved, but it’s a way. It is also a great reminder of what an advantage those incumbents who never do their actual elected jobs, or even those who do do their jobs most of the time, have while running for office. They can campaign full time while getting paid by us whereas if a normal person’s job lets them do it that’s a campaign contribution (which probably exceeds contribution limits). Again, the system sucks and it’s built for rich people and incumbents. For most of the time I was running, you could pay yourself out of campaign funds in a federal race, under certain circumstances, after filing, with limitations, and you would get skewered by the media and probably in tv ads, so people didn’t do it. New rules came into effect last year that will hopefully make it better for federal candidates, but won’t do anything for local candidates and who knows what the media or opponents will do with it. Then, there’s the old fashioned way, cut costs as much as possible and try to scrape by, which is what I did. Here are some details on how I got through each race, which should be good information for you no matter what office you are running for. 2006 State Rep I was young and was in law school at Mizzou, so this was probably the easiest one. I could have even lived at my parents house if I wanted, but I had a basement apartment that was like $150 a month in a rough-ish neighborhood down the street. I started knocking doors the March before the election began. It was easy while I was in school because I stacked my classes and my work schedule in a way that made it easy. Then that summer every evening after work and all day Saturday and Sunday I spent 100% of the daylight hours walking through neighborhoods knocking doors. The fall was school again and I skipped as much class as I could to work to make money and to knock doors to get votes. I had no family obligations and no real personal life, so it didn’t matter. If my car broke, I fixed it myself with a Haynes manual and some old tools. Any extra money I had I put toward the campaign, including a couple thousand in student loans I didn’t need for personal expenses that I spent to mail out some campaign literature at the end. I would not recommend that, but that’s how I did it and I survived financially. 2022 US Senate It’s not right how long these races take and how much time they consume, but here we are in 2025 America and campaigning takes years of full-time effort. For my first senate campaign, I started an exploratory committee in January of 2021 and lost the primary in August 2022. The first year or so I was able to work my day job at a non-profit and fundraise and do the occasional event in the evenings or weekends. Election year, however, I had to quit my job in order to campaign full-time because the evenings and weekends were not enough time. The plus side for a large campaign like this is that I had a team, so they were able to run the campaign during the day the first year and keep things moving along. I would not have been able to make it through this campaign or the next one without the United States Marine Corps. I was in the Marine Corps Reserve the entire time, so I was able to make some money doing drills and my annual training. It also gave me good family insurance for a little over $200 per month with a very low deductible and cost share through Tricare Reserve Select. (Probably another reason we don’t have universal healthcare in this country– politicians don’t want normal people to have healthcare because then they could run against them!) Just as importantly, I was able to sell back 60 days of leave when I left active duty and I had savings from my 13 year active duty career, particularly the three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Those deployments also helped because, while abroad, I received very solid advice to buy properties at my duty stations using the VA Loan and in my home state of residence (which was always Missouri). When I started the campaign, I was able to sell a couple of those with some equity, which helped. Also, my house in Independence that I bought while I was in the Marine Corps is a “house-hack.” It’s a large old house that was divided into three units with a small house behind it, so four units total, all on the same mortgage. I re-combined two of the units into a large 4 bedroom for me and my family and rented out the other two in order to minimize my housing costs and basically live mortgage free. It’s funny because several times during the campaign I saw comments from people saying things like “he can’t really live there, it’s a multi-family.” Well, actually, I couldn’t have run for office if I didn’t live there because that’s the only way I was able to afford running. But that tells you what people think about politicians: that they must all be rich. Because that’s usually what it takes. But four bedrooms and two baths was more than enough for us! 2024 US Senate I wasn’t able to work at all during this campaign, so it was really hard. Fortunately, I got married and my wife works! So I spent most of the campaign calling her my sugar momma. If you have a two income household, that’s a big deal when running for office. It was still hard, though. We would not have made it without the Marine Reserve benefits and salary. I don’t advise this, but in full transparency, I did cash out a $17k Roth IRA when things got really tight since I wouldn’t pay a penalty or taxes on the amount I originally put in, just on the earnings ($7k). This was a bad long term financial decision, but we needed to survive and I went all in on this campaign because I thought it was the right thing to do. I would not have mortgaged or cashed out retirement to fund the campaign, though, and don’t believe you should either. If you’re a normal person, that’s just not enough money to impact a statewide campaign relative to the damage it’s going to do to you personally. You are making a big enough sacrifice, if you can’t get enough other people to support you and believe in you, then you probably shouldn’t be running and you definitely shouldn’t be mortgaging your life on it. Which brings us to the most important thing in modern politics… 3. Be ready to raise. You will never win, make a splash, or impact anything if you don’t raise any money to get your name and message out. I found that in every campaign I did. I think I could have won in 2006 if I had had the money to reach people. In 2022 I was drowned by a zillionaire. And in 2024, while I don’t think there is anything we could have done to win given where the national atmosphere landed and the state of Missouri, in targeted exurban and rural areas where we could afford to get my message out, even just at parity with my opponent, we outperformed the presidential ticket by 10%. Where we didn’t have the money (we could only afford to compete in 4 of the 10 media markets) we barely outperformed it at all. Raising money is not easy and it is incredibly time intensive, but it is essential. I spent the first few months of my first senate run calling every single number that I had in my phone. All of them. Dates from years ago. Their families! Acquaintances from college. Old co-workers. People I’d never spoken to but for some reason I had in my phone– some of whom I didn’t even know. I was frequently amazed by the generosity of the people I called, and pained by the fact that I was calling them asking for money. I just kept telling myself, it’s better than calling lobbyists and corporate PACs! But, frankly, they probably would have just ignored me at that point anyway. When you do this, you will be surprised at how much some people will give who maybe shouldn’t, and how little some people with all the money in the world and on the same side of the aisle as you will give. It’s actually quite fun to reconnect with so many people, and I’m grateful that I had a reason, but a lot of times it was a bit uncomfortable given what that reason was. You will also (hopefully) do a lot of fundraisers. For me this is more fun, because I like being with people, but if you’re not a people person, that could be tough and something to prepare for, too. After months of talking to friends and family, I turned to random lists of donor phone numbers. That’s what comes after friends and family. Cold calls. And it is a real grind. A lot of people get dozens of fundraising calls per week. It’s brutal. The system is broken. And until it’s fixed, this is what you’re up against. So to everyone reading this who was kind on the phone or helped out in some way, whether you were a friend or family, or someone I had never met before, thank you! You will also need a team who understands how to raise money online, through the mail, and through an email program. I had an incredible dedicated team who helped us reach so many of you with our message and goals. So to everyone else who contributed through our email program or from seeing me on TV, in print, or some other way, thank you, too! I’m so grateful for everything you gave to try to help us turn our vision for a better country and a better Missouri into reality. Speaking of vision, the next thing to consider when running is… 4. Why are you running? A lot of people will say you need to be motivated by what you want to accomplish in order to run. What you want to do for your community or state or your country. Your goals in office, etc. I am had those motivations. I wanted to change who had power in the country and deliver for my community and for working people (link to my reasons for running). But, to be real, I don’t think those types of motives or goals are necessary to successfully run for office in this country. And—again—this is coming from me, someone who truly wanted to make positive change. I think it’s good for you if that motivates you and I certainly think it’s better for all of the rest of us, but objectively I don’t think it matters at all and it certainly isn’t a requirement for running for office. Just look around, there are plenty of people who hold elected office who don’t care about their community at all, nor do they want to make any real positive change. Some are there for status. Others to make money. Some for fame or notoriety. Some to get on tv or sell books. I’m sure there are some who are bored or just wanted the challenge. The reasons are endless. While it might be sad for our country, I actually don’t think that your reason for running really matters even for your chance of winning goes. Sure, you’ll need to be able to answer the question, because it’s the most common question you will be asked, but there are some pretty generic ones people have been successful with (to save our country!), so that’s not that hard. More important is that you need to be committed to the run and at least somewhat motivated, regardless of the motivation, or have people around you who are committed or connected and driving the bus. The people around you are incredibly important and will make or break what you are trying to do, which brings me to…. 5. Get the right help. I would have never gotten off the ground if a friend of mine hadn’t been deeply connected at the national political level, gotten me in touch with donors, and introduced me to the media team who made our first killer campaign video.
It just wouldn’t have happened without her. That media team was the path to my campaign manager and more connections. I never hired a general campaign consultant, I don’t think you need one if you have a strong campaign manager that can hire a strong staff, but you definitely need a team around you who knows what they are doing and has connections. There will be a lot of people who try to take advantage of you either for access, to feel powerful or cool, or to make money. You need people to help you navigate that. So get a real team if you are running for a real office. And try to find someone who can get you started or connected. The local party might be part of that, especially if you are running for something like state representative in an uncontested race, or they might not. Which brings me to my second to last thing for this episode. 6. You are not the hero. If you are a normal person with no political connections and no money, you may be exactly what this country needs, but people in politics will not see you as a hero coming into the political arena to save the day. Prepare for a dog fight at every level and every turn. People in politics who have any sort of desire, wish, office, or ambition (that doesn’t revolve around making money off of you) are going to dislike you. Politics is a heavily contested space full of people with ambition and if you seem like a threat, or even like someone who might succeed, and you don’t have money to ease the path, you are not going to have many friends. Find the friends you can, hold onto them, and do right by them. Politics is full of cowards. By design, cowardice is incentivized. The money structure alone is built to hold insiders in line, not to mention the political structure. Toe the line, work your way up, don’t ruffle feathers, so and so is the boss, pay your dues, etc. People rarely stick their necks out for others and typically will shy away from even calculated risk (a calculated risk is where you bet $10 to win $100 and have a 20% chance of winning the hundred, for example). So if you find someone with power or influence who believes in what you believe in and is willing to take or share risks to accomplish that shared goal, embrace them. There are thousands of motivations, cliques, and relationships you will never understand. Sometimes people can help you navigate them, other times it’s not even worth trying. It often won’t make sense why certain people hate you or support others. People you won’t know and will never meet will criticize everything you do, even things they do themselves and believe in (if not for you). They will hate you and try to hurt you. My advice is to turn the other cheek. Be nice to everyone. Yes, even those who are antagonistic toward you. Maybe even nicer to them, because you never know if that can change, when that can change, or where you or they might be in the future. Control the one thing you can control: yourself, and be aware of the rest but don’t get bogged down in it. You can dream about the sweet revenge you will get if you win if you want, but remember, you’re probably not going to win, and if you want to do it again, they might be on your side next time. That said, show your actual opponent, anyone who is a credible threat to you on the ballot, no mercy. Trust me, they’re not going to give you any. With everyone else, stick to your message, your goals, and what you want to accomplish, and let the rest sort itself out. In the same way that you will be shocked by who does and does not donate and how much they give, you will be shocked by who ends up your friend or your ally someday. Especially if you don’t hold an office or have any real power, always leave those doors open. Your only assets as a normal person are yourself and your relationships, and you will need as many as you can get no matter what office you are running for. Which brings us to the last thing! 7. What office to run for? There are a lot of ways to crack this nut. I ran for the offices I was born into without regard to the win-ability or demographics or whatever else. My state rep district was where I grew up and lived basically my whole life, and for the Senate races, Missouri is the only state that’s ever been my official residence. That wasn’t the cleanest path to winning, but I love those places and believe that they are a part of me and wanted to serve them. Other people switch states or districts or even neighborhoods to get across lines that are more favorable or don’t have an incumbent, or maybe have a weak incumbent. The most important thing here is to do something you can personally handle. You might need to run for a non-partisan position like school board because your job doesn’t permit partisan politics and you can’t afford to quit or shift. You might have lots of time for door knocking but don’t think you can raise money, so go for a race where you can do that like state representative or city council. If you’re in a union, there might be a strong union area or seat that your union can help you run for. Just remember, you are likely to lose, and you need to pick something that you will survive losing if that happens. The End! Running for office can be incredibly rewarding, but it can be a massive investment of time and resources, including other people’s resources which is an incredible burden to carry, particularly if you run your campaign like I did with no corporate PAC and no federal lobbyist money. If you are a normal person running for office, it can be a real sacrifice, as I experienced. And if you want to win, you might have to do it multiple times, or many times. There are thousands of examples of people running over and over again until they finally win. It takes a lot to get yourself out there if you weren’t born that way. It’s why so many people choose not to do it and probably why we have the system we have right now. I want to end this by saying that I could have never run for office without the support and encouragement from so many of you. Many of you friends I have never even met but am incredibly grateful for. And if you want to run someday, and do it the right way, it sure helps a lot to have friends and support like I did. Until next time. Lucas You're currently a free subscriber to Lucas’s Substack. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Running For Office as a Normal Person
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