I’ve spent thirty plus years in politics and working across all seven continents, the last five digging through FEC filings, court records, and campaign bank accounts so you don’t have to. So believe me when I tell you: the warning lights are flashing bright red right now. Half our party is driving with their eyes closed, arguing over what’s playing on the radio.
I don’t need to look far for proof. I see it right from my front porch.
Exhibit A: North Carolina’s 11th District
Meet Chuck. I live in NC-11, tucked in the mountains west of Asheville. Our congressman is Chuck Edwards. Edwards is currently under investigation following allegations he was sleeping with, or trying to sleep with, his own staff. Beyond that, he presided over a Hurricane Helene disaster recovery that left his constituents stranded without debris removal, housing funds, or basic answers while he cut ribbons and posed for photo ops. And yes, Chuck has the single worst comb-over in the United States Congress. That’d be funny if it weren’t such a precise metaphor for the guy: an awful lot of effort to cover up what everyone can plainly see.
Meet Jamie. This district ought to be a knife fight, and credit where it’s due, our nominee is fighting one. Jamie Ager, a fourth-generation local farmer, has out-raised Edwards roughly 3 to 1. That’s around $3 million compared to Chuck’s $940,000, holding more than four times his cash on hand according to the latest FEC filings. Polling shows Edwards in deep trouble.
Now, here’s the catch. NC-11 is an anomaly, and everybody in politics knows it.
Ager is what happens when a top-tier local candidate, a severely wounded incumbent, and serious money happen to collide in the exact same place at the exact same time. Go ahead, name a second district where all three conditions are true right now. I’ll wait.
Across the rest of the country, great challengers are starved for cash. National money arrives in late October, if it shows up at all, and wounded incumbents cruise to victory simply because nobody built the infrastructure to knock them off. One bright spot in the mountains isn’t a nationwide wave; it’s a mirage letting everyone else off the hook.
Even here, the race isn’t won. It comes down to whether that war chest actually transforms into door knocks in Mitchell, Madison, and Haywood counties. Money that stays in a bank account is just a digit on a quarterly report.
NC-11 is the exception. Here’s the rule with six warning signs we’re ignoring at our own peril.
1. Confusing Pure Anger With Actual Organization
Anger is free. Organization costs real money, time, and shoe leather. Western North Carolina is furious over the Helene recovery, but raw fury doesn’t knock doors, cure flawed ballots, or pull low-propensity voters to the polls in precincts decided by 900 votes. Rallies in Asheville feel great, but they don’t move Mitchell, Madison, or Haywood counties an inch. If your county party’s field operations fit on a paper napkin, you aren’t ready. Right now, way too many of ours aren’t.
2. Money Going to the Wrong Places (Still)
I run a PAC. I read filings. Most people would want a shower after looking at them. A shameful chunk of small-dollar cash raised in the name of “saving democracy” gets incinerated on consultant fees, list rentals, and out-of-state vendors who’ve never won a single race in the state they’re billing. I’ve documented campaigns where over 40% of the money left state lines before a single voter was ever contacted. That isn’t a political campaign; it’s a car wash for political consultants.
Donors: Do your homework. Look up candidates on VoteROI.com1 and direct your money to the races that desperately need cash today.
3. National Cash Arrives Late or Not at All
October money is funeral money. The DCCC and major national funders love parachuting into races in late September, long after the die is cast, and then blaming the candidate when they lose. Battles are won with early capital: building staff, field networks, and name recognition in the spring, not a frantic TV ad buy ten days before the election. Writing off winnable districts with damaged incumbents isn’t high strategy, it’s malpractice, and people ought to lose their jobs over it every single cycle. (Spoiler: nobody ever does.)
4. The Map and the System Aren’t Neutral
While folks argued on Twitter, the other side redrew the maps. North Carolina’s lines were explicitly drawn to safeguard incumbents like Chuck Edwards, and that exact playbook played out state after state. Throw in voter roll purges, closed polling sites, and local election offices staffed by people who still insist 2020 was stolen. None of this is secret; it’s public record enacted in broad daylight. Every hour spent in social media flame wars is an hour nobody spent recruiting poll watchers or funding election protection lawyers for post-election courtrooms.
5. Complacency Disguised as Confidence
“Midterms always swing against the party in power.” Maybe. But historical trends aren’t a field strategy, and hope isn’t a ground game. Chuck Edwards’s main achievements are an active federal investigation, a disastrous recovery response, and a hairstyle held together by Aqua Net, and he’s still standing. Guys like Chuck don’t lose to general vibes; they lose to relentless organization. The “inevitable wave” has a funny way of evaporating, leaving the same pundits to write post-mortems on why the failure was bound to happen.
6. The Circular Firing Squad Is Loaded
Last night, I got an email that illustrates our whole problem. A donor gave us $10 two years ago, then wrote in to unsubscribe over our billboard campaign targeting Lauren Boebert. She stated she strongly opposes Boebert’s views and held no objection to holding her accountable, but our billboards offended her manners, so she was pulling out.
The kicker? She lives in Colorado, but not even in Boebert’s district.
Is that email an isolated incident? Sure. Most of our inbox consists of snark, encouragement, and useful tips. But pause and digest what that email represents: Lauren Boebert votes against disaster relief, veterans, and her own constituents, yet this donor’s response is to lecture the one group that nearly stripped Boebert of her seat and take her ten bucks home.
I offered to refund her $10. Hell, I’d drive it to her house. If you spend your energy policing the folks fighting in the trenches and hitting us harder than you hit Boebert, you aren’t an ally.
As our co-founder Col. Moe Davis likes to put it:
“The GOP brings a chainsaw to a knife fight, while Democrats show up with a quinoa salad.”
The other side doesn’t do this. Their donors don’t cut and run over rough language or sharp edges. They know they’re in a knife fight, and they back the people holding knives. Our side keeps expecting a war won with thank-you notes and pristine etiquette, then acts stunned when the Boeberts and Edwardses of the world keep winning. Politics is a contact sport. If you don’t treat this like a battle for the country’s direction, you aren’t paying attention.
Our Own Books, Open on the Table
Sunlight applies to everybody, including me.
American Muckrakers has raised $13,865 across 541 contributions this year, along with roughly $14,000 from subscribers to this Substack. Split that across six months, and it’s about $4,500 a month for a 61-year-old man and his three teenage kids to live on. That is the entire war chest of the outfit that helped derail Madison Cawthorn’s political career, operating on an average gift of $25 while grift shops with slick email systems and zero wins collect millions.
Small-dollar donors are exhausted. They’ve been burned by years of urgent “DONATE NOW OR DEMOCRACY DIES” inbox spam, leaving the people doing the real work to pay the price.
That number terrifies me, more than any polling data. Not because I’m scraping by, but because I know how hard we work, what we’re capable of flipping, and how pitiful our fundraising numbers are relative to the stake.
So here is a direct ask, with total transparency on where every cent goes: Lauren Boebert is expected in Colorado courtrooms this August and September regarding her son’s criminal cases. We are raising funds right now to place cameras in those courtrooms and put her testimony directly in front of her constituents, in her own words, on the record.
No consultants. No email list rentals. Just live coverage on social media and a pooled feed for news outlets. If you want hard-hitting accountability journalism over another panic-email about democracy, help us make it happen: donate here.
Want something tangible for your money? Pick up my book. James Carville already told you to. All proceeds go directly to American Muckrakers.
So What Do We Actually Do?
I’m a muckraker, not a doomsayer. Every single one of these problems has a practical fix, but it requires unsexy work nobody posts on social media:
Give smart: Use VoteROI.com to donate directly to candidates like Jamie Ager and local grassroots groups conducting real voter contact, not email lists that spend your $25 renting other email lists. Got $10 for us? It goes straight to courtroom cameras in Colorado this August and September.
Do the unglamorous jobs: Data entry, ballot curing, voter transit, poll monitoring. If you hold a law license, sign up for election protection now—not three days before the election. Got a laptop and a platform? Focus locally, where a few hundred votes alter the outcome.
Hold our own side accountable: Sunlight isn’t reserved exclusively for Republicans. When our campaigns burn donor money or national committees write off winnable seats, call them out. A party unable to police itself has no business asking voters for power.
Disaster isn’t inevitable, but it is sitting right in front of us, in NC-11 and in my inbox, waiting for us to remain complacent, disorganized, and preoccupied with grading each other’s manners.
Ninety-six days. Get off your ass, get to work, and give.
— DBW
About the Author
David B. Wheeler is the president and co-founder of American Muckrakers, the Western North Carolina accountability group best known for helping end Madison Cawthorn’s congressional career in 2022, a rare instance of a sitting incumbent losing his own primary because someone took the time to do the research. Since then, American Muckrakers has focused its lens on Lauren Boebert, Ken Paxton, and a growing list of politicians treating public office like a personal bank account. He publishes accountability journalism at Muckrakers.Today.
Wheeler co-hosts the MUCK YOU! podcast alongside Col. Moe Davis, retired Air Force colonel and former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. He authored Color the Crooks, Case File #001: Lauren Boebert, the coloring book endorsed by James Carville with the words: “She earned every damn page. Buy it.”
He is also the founder of VoteROI.com, a political data platform built on 86.9 million FEC records to help donors trace where their money actually goes.
Before founding Muckrakers, Wheeler spent three decades in politics, elections, and event production across 50+ countries on all seven continents. Along the way, he lowered the Mississippi River, produced the first professional sports event ever held in Moscow, and staged the first marathon ever run in Antarctica. His political background spans decades: Page for the Iowa House of Representatives, U.S. Senate intern, and Iowa National Committeeman for the Young Democrats of America. David served as lead advance for then-Senator Barack Obama in Iowa City in October 2006, and again during his presidential announcement in Waterloo in February 2007.
An Iowa native and Hawkeye, Wheeler is a father of three living in Western North Carolina’s 11th District. He believes sunlight is the ultimate disinfectant, filings don’t lie, and the loudest person in the room usually has the most to hide.
(And yes—Lauren Boebert threatened to sue him, never did, so David sued her in Federal Court in Denver and won a partial victory.)
Paid for by American Muckrakers PAC II (americanmuckrakers.com). Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Contributions to American Muckrakers, Inc. are not tax-deductible for federal or state purposes.
This publication constitutes First Amendment-protected commentary on matters of public concern. All individuals mentioned are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law. Content may not be republished for commercial purposes without explicit written consent from American Muckrakers PAC, Inc. and David B. Wheeler.
I have an ownership stake in VoteROI.com
I just looked at VoteRoi. It still has Platner as a candidate.
You don't need to shake that Jamie Ager family tree very hard to find James McClure Clarke who represented this district very well in Congress for several terms.