What’s the Number One Thing Needed to Win an Election?

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You’d like to think it’s something like command of the issues or the ability to inspire, right? Maybe it’s just plain old cash. From the Center for Responsive Politics:

Continuing a trend seen election cycle after election cycle, the biggest spender was victorious in 397 of 426 decided House races and 30 of 32 settled Senate races [in 2008]. On Election Day 2006, top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. In 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to the biggest spender, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.

Of course, cash may be correlative instead of causative. That is, candidates that are better qualified, better on the issues, and better able to inspire voters raise more money than their opponents, and then go on to win.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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