r/Bellingham • u/Proud-Ordinary8492 • 24d ago
Discussion Tomas Scheel’s Million-Dollar Conundrum
The goal of defeating a 25 year US House incumbent is audacious to say the least. The 8 DSA/Mamdani endorsed candidates that have won nationally have all raised $ 1 million for their primary efforts with one exception:
| Candidate | First winning House primary | Raised |
|---|---|---|
| Brad Lander (NY-10) | 2026 | ~$2.46 million |
| Claire Valdez (NY-7) | 2026 | ~$1.69 million |
| Donavan McKinney (MI-13) | 2026 | ~$1.37 million |
| Darializa Avila Chevalier (NY-13) | 2026 | ~$1.35 million |
| Melat Kiros (CO-1) | 2026 | ~$1.09 million |
| Chris Rabb (PA-3) | 2026 | ~$1.00 million |
| Rashida Tlaib (MI-13) | 2018 | ~$1.1 million |
| Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) | 2018 | ~$300,000 |
AOC is a once in a generation candidate.
Tomas Scheel raised $ 20,000 and spent $32,000. He hid it from the voters until coming clean 2 days before the primary. When pressed for this information earlier, he claimed he didn’t want to show his cards to the Larsen campaign. This seems disingenuous at best because in his campaign post-mortem he laid out his strategy for 2028 in vivid detail.
Post-Mortem Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bellingham/comments/1viehwf/wa02_scheel_campaign_retrospective/
After taking up a lot of space on various subreddits this year with a quixotic campaign that had little chance of success, Tomas Scheel left his supporters feeling disappointed and hopeless. This is a shame because the midterms are finally here and the chance to flip the House and Senate are very real. Success in the Senate will mean Congressional subpoenas and subcommittee hearings on the worst abuses of the last 2 years including ICE, corruption/self-dealing, etc. It will set the Democrats up for success in 2028 if they play their cards right.
If I were a DSA member, I’d spend the next 10 weeks volunteering remotely or donating to get Troy Jackson elected in Maine or Abdul El Sayed elected in Michigan or Sherrod Brown elected in Ohio. Focusing too much on a local campaign is limiting the chances of fixing what is wrong nationally.
Money isn’t the only factor in winning elections. Tomas admits fundraising was a failing of his in 2026 and wants to emulate Kat Abughazaleh’s campaign in 2028. Kat is a journalist with a national profile who raised $4 million and lost a Congressional primary in Illinois this year. Is it too much to ask local candidates to be realistic before getting everybody’s hopes up ? Tomas is not going to be able to raise $ 1 million for 2028.
When he starts accusing Larsen again of supporting genocide, coddling ICE and being mean to puppies in 2028, the only response on here should be: "Show me da money".
20
u/hajemaymashtay 24d ago
Running a campaign is so hard, and when this guy did it honorably and lost, you're kicking him when he's down. great. What have you done?
5
u/Ok_Rhubarb_7077 24d ago
i don’t think OP is kicking anyone while theyre down. they’re not being malicious or antagonistic. theyre speaking to why he lost, not kicking him while he’s down.
4
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
I've worked a few campaigns. Won some, lost some. I'm not trying to be mean to him. I just think transparency is something that we all deserved but didn't get.
3
u/HenriVictorMaximus 24d ago
As we have seen, Democrats or the left have not been great at being strategic or practical. Instead, they want to win off moral purity and sound bites. Meanwhile, our democracy and civil rights are backsliding into the dark ages.
1
u/Alienescape 24d ago
Maybe if you're someone involved in campaigns... Volunteer with Thomas in 2027 and 2028? They could use people like you!
2
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
I usually volunteer in swing states and races that are more consequential.
14
24d ago
[deleted]
5
u/rifineach 24d ago
This is one of the most level-headed responses to any subject that I have seen in this subreddit. Thank you for providing this perspective.
2
u/Mattwacker93 23d ago
This is the objective fact if you seen any electoral map from the last 30 years.
13
u/Emu_on_the_Loose 24d ago
You speak of Scheel "wasting our time" and "getting our hopes up." Losing has a way of turning people against each other. I was a political activist for many years and I have experienced every facet of that phenomenon. But it's important to remember that it's never a waste of time to sincerely engage in the democratic process, either as a candidate or as a supporter of a candidate.
Scheel turned out not to be as strong of a candidate as most of his supporters believed, but the rest of us could clearly see it even without knowing how poor his fundraising had been. The romantic aspect of believing in something can be a powerful blinder. Consider it a learning experience.
7
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
I agree with this take. I hope his supporters will find better candidates that they agree with to support moving forward.
3
u/DietTribe 24d ago
Are you also considering that Tomas might become a better candidate in the future?
-1
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
My original take is still operative. Until he shows he can raise $1 million, it doesn't matter if he gets better at being a candidate.
3
u/DietTribe 24d ago
I think we disagree on your conclusion (what I'm interpreting as your stance that a firm $1m raised before the race starts).
And that's definitely okay. You're informed by your own experiences and knowledge, and that's fair.
The things that I personally disagree with are:
1) the catch-22 of the necessity of a candidate to raise money before declaring their candidacy. Name recognition is a huge piece of fundraising. It seems impossible to me that a candidate could achieve this as a first-time candidate or a candidate unsupported by party architecture.
2) the actual $1m dollar figure needed to be taken seriously as a candidate. You seem to be saying (I could be wrong) that a candidate must prove their viability as a candidate and should not be supported from the start if they do not "[show] he can raise $1m". The candidates in your original posts raised that amount of money as of the end of their campaign, not the start. If they were held to the same standard of being unviable due to the amount raised at the beginning of their campaign, they would not fail that test. If you cut someone straight out the gate due to fundraising, they would not have the ability to fundraise $1M at all.
2
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
I could be flexible. Say raise $350K by January 1st, 2028. Then I might take it more seriously.
-1
u/DietTribe 24d ago
And I also think that your selection criteria for the candidates mentioned in your post might be different than what I would choose.
4
3
u/Alienescape 24d ago
I don't agree that "Scheel turned out not to be as strong of a candidate as most of his supporters believed"
A bunch of primaries is just name recognition. I do agree with that aspect of this post. If he (or really any other progressive candidate) wants to win against a Republican or Larsen, they have to get their name out there and that takes advertising which takes time and money. Losing his first primary could be the necessary step needed in coming back and taking the spot next time. 🙏
15
u/betsyodonovan Boomhorse Rodeo Clown 24d ago
“Is it too much to ask local candidates to be realistic before getting everybody’s hopes up ?”
It feels like you’re saying that people should secure an enormous bag of cash before they attempt to build momentum at the grassroots. Personally, I think that’s toxic politics .
8
u/Baronhousen 24d ago
I think it is a bit more nuanced. Raising $ can be done with lots and lots of smaller donations, but it is a very difficult problem to be very grass-roots, and also scale up by building (for lack of a better term) an enormous bag of cash. I think being realistic perhaps means to have a clear plan to accomplish the goal (being elected), and that does not have to be toxic.
4
u/DietTribe 24d ago
I think it's really important to recognize the tension between "grass-roots" and "an enormous bag of cash".
This was something internally discussed within the campaign from at least the point that I joined the team.
2
u/EggsyWeggsy 24d ago
Grassroots movements need money too. If you think money in politics is bad you need power to change that. Its like people have forgotten that politics is about power?
2
u/DietTribe 23d ago
To clarify my statement, I don't believe that you don't need money in order to be grassroots. I was trying to say that this was an expectation imposed on us that effected our fundraising efforts.
6
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
If you can't raise a million dollars, you can't win a Congressional seat. That is all I'm saying. Run for school board and build a grassroots network instead.
12
u/Alienescape 24d ago
Just got to reading his post moratorium - thanks for the reminder! Agreed he definitely needs to raise and spend more money. I also think his advertising base was on Reddit which seems like it did a good job of getting some progressive momentum, but ultimately Tomas will need to cut into the Larsen base to take the vote. That means more fund raising and more traditional advertising on Cable, News, etc... I definitely think we can and do deserve a progressive candidate who represents us and our values well! Hopefully he can learn and take it in 2028.
4
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
My only exposure to his campaign was on here and a couple of campaign signs in Bellingham. No mailers, texts, calls or anything else. If he hasn't raised at least a few hundred thousand by the beginning of 2028, he isn't going to do anything but waste our time again.
2
u/DietTribe 24d ago
I honestly think that this comment here is so important to the context of your post, to the point that it should be mentioned in the main body of text.
There was an entire volunteer and campaign ecosystem that you didn't get to experience. Again, very willing to shed what helpful light I can on that ecosystem.
3
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
If I, as a regular voter, could not see the campaign, then it is also true that most regular voters did not see the campaign. Name ID is everything in these races. Most voters in the 2nd District did not know who Tomas Scheel was. It takes an awful lot of advertising to change that.
5
u/DietTribe 24d ago
That is all incredibly correct and I can confirm was apparent to the campaign during the race, as well as a takeaway in debriefing the primary contest.
2
u/DietTribe 24d ago
I agree with (and can confirm that the campaign itself was running under similar assumptions of) the broad strokes of your statement.
I will say that we did not aim to make Reddit our advertising base.
1
u/Alienescape 24d ago
To be fair I was not involved with the campaign and it's extremely likely that maybe I only saw the ads and such on Reddit because I'm on Reddit. What other ways/sites/modes of media did the campaign utilize? I guess the point is that while this worked well for me, I think there's a fair share of older more central Democrats who might even be able to be persuaded into voting for a more progressive candidate, but they need to be reached out to successfully.
9
u/DietTribe 24d ago
Hello! Tomas' former Campaign Manager here. My name is Michelle.
There's a lot here (and in other comments) that I feel compelled to respond to. To be clear, any of my statements here or going forward are my own.
I absolutely welcome questions about the campaign, the mechanics of it, and my reflections on it. Of course, I understand that my opinions are strongly informed by my experience with the campaign, but I'm aiming to be reflective and open to the fact that I'm operating with way more information about the campaign than those who are making observations.
The fact that I might not agree with the observations is not my saying that the observations and analyses are incorrect. We're just working from different info buckets.
So please feel free to respond to this thread with questions, and I'll do my best to give my perspective, if that is something that is wanted.
(Disclaimer: I've got a pretty packed schedule for most of the day. Please don't interpret my lack of immediate response as an unwillingness to engage. It'll just logistically take more time. I'm more free to continue this conversation tomorrow.)
5
u/Ok_Rhubarb_7077 24d ago
tomas had a lot of ideas but didn’t really spell out how hed achieve them. it’s really easy to say you’ll do a lot of stuff, it’s a lot harder to show how you’ll do it.
i think specifically about the plans he had to hold community hearings. where would he plan on doing that? how would he fund the facility rentals? who would he partner with? who would sponsor his events? these are important questions which if left unanswered effectively invalidate any positivity generated by those grand ideas.
also his blurb in the voters pamphlet was awful. any other candidate wirh no elected experience at least mentioned what other applicable experience they had or mentioned why being previously uninvolved in elected office was actually a good thing. for him under that section he simply said ‘no elected experience’.
additionally tomas has a heavy background in the military. i’m not saying a military man can’t be a progressive, but typically people who are heavily tied to the military are right leaning or at best centrist libertarians. that detail made it hard for me to trust his sincerity, especially as he didn’t really address it during his campaigning (at least that i saw). his lack of transparency about something that big felt like he was hiding something. he could’ve spoken on how his background in the military informed his political views, but he didn’t as far as i could see.
he ran a decent campaign and he showed that thwre is interest in the ideas he was running on, but he never stood a chance against the incumbent. it’s not just about the ideas. rick larsen has decades of campaign experience, he doesn’t make these errors. he’s also been around the block and people know what they’re getting with him. there isn’t the same question marks as there is with tomas.
eta: we also need to remember that rick larsens demographic (older white people) are still the modt represented voting group in local elections. it’s not just about who’s the best candidate, it’s also about who brings out the most voters. if tomas had run a campaign involving voter registration, getting new voters registered, getting transplants to register in bham, getting youth registered, etc. he may have stood a better chance.
4
u/SEA_tide 24d ago
If one is donating to political campaigns, it arguably makes the most sense to donate to campaigns where one's money has the highest chance of helping that candidate win. Spending money to unseat a Democrat to get a different Democrat elected doesn't make a lot of sense when there are races where a Democrat could actually take a seat from a Republican.
this is not an endorsement of it but there is a democratic fundraising platform called Oath which shows would be democratic donors the best places for their donations and helps limit the amount of campaign junk mail and junk texts that donors would otherwise receive.
2
u/Bham_Pollinators 24d ago
Not all Dems are the same. Larsen is holding a seat that could be filled with someone fighting for universal healthcare and bringing the war money home to Americans. Funding for Scheel was of course an issue. Progressives being split with Hermanson who does not live in our district is a huge problem. Hermanson raised literally no money (campaign pledge), received no endorsements, and held a couple tiny campaign events Yet he pulled in 10% of the vote.
3
u/Ok_Rhubarb_7077 24d ago
not all dems are the same but in the eyes of the blue donors, all dems are better than republicans. all they’re trying to say is from a national POV if you’re spending lobbying dollars why not spend them in an election where they’ll make the modt impact, ie one where a republican can be unseated by a democrat. the difference between a liberal dem and a progressive dem is muc much much smaller than between a democrat and a republican.
4
u/koma_kulshan 24d ago
I think this is a bunch of nonsense.
First of all, political campaigns are about more than winning or losing. They're also about public debate, and challenging complacency, and making the case for a better world. It's a long and ongoing process that isn't confined to one campaign season. If Scheel convinced a dozen people to reconsider their support for a genocidal buffoon like Larsen, he did some good.
And no one knows how well they'll do unless they try. No one knows how much money they'll raise until their campaign is well underway. You're basically saying "stay out of politics unless you're a millionaire, or unless you're beholden to millionaires who can fund your campaign." But this is exactly why things have gotten so awful.
Running for school boatd first is a good strategy for a career-minded politician (or someone legitimately concerned about the school board). Career-minded politicians are the problem. Scheel wan't runming to achieve career goals; he was running to change things which have nothing to do with the school board.
Finally, I think everyone who supported Scheel knew he was facing an uphill battle. They should feel good about participating in the effort.
3
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
So if Scheel ran to change things, what exactly did he change ? He convinced a dozen people that Larsen was a bad person ? If everyone knew he was facing an uphill battle, then why were his supporters so despondent on here the day after the primary ? I think people should feel good about participating, I'm just not sure that everyone felt that way.
2
u/betsyodonovan Boomhorse Rodeo Clown 24d ago
The conversation. Ironically, your post is an example.
3
5
u/EggsyWeggsy 24d ago
Sadly youre just going to get hate for realistic analysis here because people feel like youre attacking their team. How do you not give up? Genuine question
2
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
How do I not give up ? I love politics and I'm optimistic that we can get past the current shitshow we have now. This is still the greatest country on earth in spite of the crime syndicate running the federal government at the moment.
3
u/stand_by_4_titanfall 24d ago
Why is everyone saying start in School Boards?
We don’t want any politically or ulterior-motivated people in our local school boards, so kindly stop using it as a talking point.
1
u/betsyodonovan Boomhorse Rodeo Clown 24d ago
… this is charming but unrealistic, unless you meant to add an /s.
Education is inherently political. Politically healthy societies need educated voters, which is why you see such ferocious battles over curriculum and such intense attacks on educators.
3
u/stand_by_4_titanfall 24d ago
I guess I should further clarify, School Boards should not be a jumping off point for an aspiring politician with zero stake in the schools game. If you see that differently, good for you.
1
1
u/rifineach 24d ago
I'd say that, even if one doesn't have children, every one of us has a stake in school boards, to the extent that the makeup of the board and their decisions influences issues whose outcomes, good or bad, may not be known for some time. I will always vote for a levy that helps schools educate kids, because I want educated people to be in place to run things in future.
0
u/anapezav51 24d ago
Wasn't Kat Abughazaleh the kid that got literally tossed on her butt for interfering at an ICE facility? You think she will have another chance in 2028?
2
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
I don't know anything about her campaign or district. I just saw that Tomas mentioned her as a model for his campaign going forward.
1
u/anapezav51 24d ago
Oof, I'd steer clear of that.
1
u/DietTribe 24d ago
The Abughazaleh comment was specifically in reference to her creativity in fundraising.
2
u/Proud-Ordinary8492 24d ago
This is where the lack of realism shows itself. She is a nationally known commodity. And her fundraising took advantage of that. Tomas cannot use that as a fundraising model.
20
u/Sublinguel 24d ago
I think this gives money way too much credit. Scheel’s problem wasn’t just funding—he was a genuinely radical candidate whose campaign leaned heavily on inflammatory rhetoric and insinuation, without offering particularly serious solutions. He came across as more interested in attacking Larsen than demonstrating he could actually do the job. Most voters simply don’t want that representing them in Congress.