Renee HoyosVerified account

Seeing a flood of announcement videos for candidates for Congress in the past week or two. While I love the energy, if you’re running an insurgent campaign for Congress against an incumbent, you probably needed to have started about six months ago and raised $100k by now.

That’s not a hard-and-fast rule. A robust field operation where lots of community orgs are unapologetically throwing down can compensate for having less money. But even the best canvassing operation can’t succeed if you can’t afford VAN + lit + office + a couple staff by now

.@AOC was an inspiration to a lot of progressives, but in many ways her story is atypical compared to what I’m seeing. -She wasn’t JUST “a bartender,” she had an extensive network & history of organizing in the district -She had the full might of DSA & Justice Dems all-in on her

Not to mention the fact that @AOC is a generational political talent who is charismatic and can hold a town hall space in a way 99% of sitting members of Congress can’t.

Lots of great candidates are trying to follow in her footsteps without checking the prerequisite boxes for success. You don’t win an insurgent campaign by just planting a flag, having good policies, making a snappy video, & copying AOC’s slanted-name graphic design branding.

One unfortunate side effect of the Presidential race is that many of the Left-Wing grassroots organizations with actual volunteers that would otherwise be working on recruiting quality candidates and setting them up for success are instead busy trying to elect Bernie (or Warren).

So we’re seeing a lot of 1st time candidates who are under-prepared jumping in late, running in a district too big, raising zero dollars, & then getting frustrated that the progressive ecosystem isn’t showering them with $ & canvassers to make them viable without doing the work.

Probably 75% of the progressive insurgent candidates running for Congress that I’ve reviewed so far would be better off running for state legislature or city council or DA. Going from zero-to-Congress is non-optimal, & will be rare. We need to build the bench with local races.