Q&A: How New York City’s Matching Funds Program Helps Better Candidates Get Elected
A Q&A with Run for Something Founder and President Amanda Litman
The money in politics story isn’t abstract for me: I’m writing this from my rent-regulated New York City apartment as the real estate industry, as usual, is throwing its weight into the city’s Democratic primaries (Election Day is next Tuesday). A super PAC representing landlords is reportedly spending $2.5 million to influence the outcome of the race for the city’s next mayor. Another super PAC (recently found to be coordinating illicitly with former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign) has received $10.8 million in contributions, much of which came from real estate and finance — and companies with business before the city, like Door Dash, contributed a reported $2.7 million.
Back in the 1980s, under former Mayor Ed Koch, the city started trying to dilute the influence of big money in city politics with a small-donor matching funds program. As the current program stands, for primary elections, city campaigns are eligible to receive $8 in public funds for every $1 they receive in donations, if the donation is $250 or less. In other words, if I donate $10, the campaign will receive a total of $90. To be eligible for the matching funds, campaigns must agree to guidelines, including a fundraising cap. The program isn’t a perfect solution— given all the other ways our campaign finance system is broken, it doesn’t completely override the influence of super PACs—but it does give candidates opposing major lobbies a fighting chance.
I spoke with Amanda Litman—founder and president of Run for Something (which recruits, trains and supports young progressives running for local and state office nationwide), author of two books (most recently, When We’re in Charge: The Next Generation’s Guide to Leadership), and fellow New York City voter— about how the matching funds program changes the balance of power in New York City campaigns.
ECU: How has the matching funds program diversified who runs for office in NYC?
Litman: The matching funds program has wildly expanded who can see themselves as viable candidates. It encourages more people who don't come from money to run for office. Something I hear from a lot of folks is "I can't run, I don't know rich people." With matching funds, you don't need to know rich people. So, running for office is more accessible for more different types of people. The age of candidates has definitely gone down because of matching funds. We've helped to elect some of the youngest city council members over the last couple of years. I think matching funds is a big reason why.
ECU: Can you describe why it’s important for running for office to be more accessible?
Litman: We need elected leaders whose life experiences can directly reflect the problems they are trying to solve. I think about City Councilmember Chi Ossé from Bed Stuy, who was the first Gen Z member of the city council. We helped elect him a couple years ago.
One of the first issues Ossé took on was ending real estate broker fees that renters were often forced to pay. He took on a deeply entrenched, well-paid establishment, the real estate lobby and made it so that if you are trying to move apartments, you don't have to shell out, say, $10,000 upfront to pay a broker. If you haven’t tried to move apartments in a while, you don't realize what a prohibitive cost that is for someone looking for a new home.
When you're not totally dependent on having to appeal to the big money operators in city politics, you can contemplate different policies, you can think about more expansive solutions to problems. As we know, money drives incentives, incentives drive campaigns. When candidates don’t have to be reliant on big-money PACs and major donors, they can really make the case about how they’re going to serve individuals, and they can be more willing to push back (on industry).
ECU: How have you seen candidates campaign differently because of matching funds?
Litman: You’re seeing candidates take to social and raise money online in a more direct way. They’re thinking about the power of building audiences in grassroots donors. All these candidates like Zohran Mamdani, Zellnor Myrie, Jessica Ramos, Chi Ossé, Crystal Hudson have really thought differently about how to communicate online in order to reach people who maybe can't give thousands of dollars but can give eight, ten, fifty bucks. Those dollars, when matched by eight times, can really move the needle for a campaign.
On any campaign, you have to spend time dialing for dollars, raising money. But the New York City matching fund focus on local donors really incentivizes candidates to spend time building relationships with their neighbors versus building national fundraising networks, which really pushes the local relationship-building.
The process itself also forces campaigns to be much smarter about how they're using their resources because of the spending caps. I think that’s good. The limit allows you to be really intentional and strategic with budgeting early on in the campaign. On other campaigns where there aren't the same kinds of limits, you don't know how much you're going to raise, you set a budget, but maybe you’ll get a ton of money right at the end, and there isn't really a great way to spend money late in the campaign. If you know what you're going to have early, you can be more effective.
ECU: How do you respond to the question, If we want to get money out of politics, why would we add more money?
Litman: The only way we can get money out of politics is to elect people who want to get money out of politics, and to elect them, we need to spend money. This is the challenge. It's really hard to break the system without being part of the system, but it's what we have to do to get the end result we need.
Matching funds open the door, and when you change the door to these institutions, you change who is able to enter them. And that's what campaign finance reform is. It changes the structure of these institutions.