Perhaps it was reasonable in prospect, but not in retrospect. He lost by a lot. So we can see now that the chance of winning was more like 10%. Whereas, if someone does a (generally two-year) stint in the state house, they can build up the resources required for a run that is credible, with a >30% chance of success. It will almost always make sense to build a public persona beforehand, in that manner, or another, rather than running “out of nowhere” again. Also, you didn’t take into account the diminishing returns of funding, and I think in future, folks will not need to spend as much per constituent.
Yglesias is more the expert here, but I would question whether boldpac explains Carrick being outvoted by 2x. Also, presumably there are only like 50 competitive primaries each cycle (with new seat, no incumbent), and many of them will include an opponent who is as strong as Salinas for one reason or another.
Perhaps it was reasonable in prospect, but not in retrospect. He lost by a lot. So we can see now that the chance of winning was more like 10%. Whereas, if someone does a (generally two-year) stint in the state house, they can build up the resources required for a run that is credible, with a >30% chance of success. It will almost always make sense to build a public persona beforehand, in that manner, or another, rather than running “out of nowhere” again. Also, you didn’t take into account the diminishing returns of funding, and I think in future, folks will not need to spend as much per constituent.
Yglesias argues in a different thread that Salinas was more competitive than expected for fairly arbitrary reasons.
Yglesias is more the expert here, but I would question whether boldpac explains Carrick being outvoted by 2x. Also, presumably there are only like 50 competitive primaries each cycle (with new seat, no incumbent), and many of them will include an opponent who is as strong as Salinas for one reason or another.