How to Run for Office When You’re Not Rich (with Kat Abughazaleh and Zohram Mamdani)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: “How to Run for Office When You’re Not Rich”

Podcast: How Is This Better?
Host: Akilah Hughes (COURIER)
Guests: Kat Abughazaleh (IL-9 Congressional candidate), Zoran Mamdani (NYC mayoral candidate)
Date: October 31, 2025

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Overview

This episode explores the daunting landscape of money in American politics, specifically the barriers faced by regular people—especially those not wealthy or well-connected—when running for office. Host Akilah Hughes delves into the realities of campaign finance with congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh and New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani, foregrounding their experiences with small-dollar fundraising, transparency, and alternative, community-driven campaign strategies. The central question: In a political arena dominated by big donors and billionaires, how can everyday people even begin to compete?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Reality of Campaign Finance

• [00:00–01:17]
  • Akilah frames the conversation: "This episode is about money in politics, something that you are now having to be very aware of."
  • Kat describes the current campaign finance landscape:
    • “It's a goddamn nightmare.” (Kat Abughazaleh, [00:19])
    • 2024 was the most expensive election ever: over $20 billion spent; individual mega-donors like Elon Musk gave hundreds of millions.
    • The stark disconnect between big-donor politics and grassroots, small-dollar fundraising.
• Personal Context:
  • Kat is a journalist known for dissecting right-wing media and is now leveraging her digital presence in her campaign.
  • Her campaign demonstrates unconventional, community-focused fundraising:
    • Raised over $1M, average donation $32.
    • Campaign office doubles as a mutual aid hub, hosting events like backpack and period supply drives that also register voters.
    • “Instead of spending a bunch of money on consultants and ads, what if we combine voter outreach and mutual aid?” (Kat, [01:17])

Barriers and Structural Challenges

• [03:58–06:36]
  • “The system is built to make it difficult for people that are not very rich and or very well connected to run for office. It is extremely inaccessible to run for office if you are poor.” (Kat, [03:58])
  • Kat breaks down core issues:
    • Success often determined by your access to wealthy contacts and ability to “dial for dollars.”
    • Start-up costs require either personal wealth or the ability to front expenses and wait for reimbursement.
    • Systemic issues: Even candidate salary rules are skewed—if your historic income is low, your campaign salary is lower, making it financially unfeasible for working-class candidates.
  • “If you are a dad to a family of four and you've been making 32K ... that is cut to $16,000.” (Kat, [06:36])
  • Personal impact: Kat has depleted her savings, relies on a partner, and faces debt for the sake of running.

The Hidden Game of Consultants and Reporting

• [07:56–08:42]
  • Major campaign spending goes to consultants, many ineffective but drawing large fees.
  • “A lot of campaign finance is inherently parasitic ... that’s what it comes down to.” (Kat, [07:56])
  • Rigid adherence to outdated strategies persists because it's lucrative for industry insiders.
  • Kat’s approach: No “grifty consultants,” transparent spending, and a living wage for campaign staff ($25/hour).

The Politics of FEC Reports & The Donation Arms Race

• [09:04–13:12]
  • FEC (Federal Election Commission) reporting shapes campaign behavior and fundraising:
    • Only donations over $200 are itemized—Kat’s reports show few large donations, underscoring her grassroots claim.
    • “It's actually what my campaign finance reports don't show.” (Kat, [09:04])
    • The “frantic texts”—pressure tactics are prevalent because FEC filing deadlines influence perceptions of campaign viability.
    • Campaigns often delay payments to preserve “cash on hand” optics at reporting deadlines.
    • Viability is judged (sometimes unfairly) by number of big checks, not just total funds or donor count.
    • “This is like weird inside baseball shit that most people don't know or care about ... it shouldn't be about how many rich people you can call.” (Kat, [11:01])

Public Matching & Structural Alternatives (Zoran Mamdani's Perspective)

• [13:18–15:27]
  • New York City’s 8-to-1 public matching system on small donations transforms the game:
    • “That changes so much of how you spend your time, what you have to spend your time with and who you then are accountable to.” (Zoran Mamdani, [14:50])
    • Builds campaigns fueled by regular people, not just donors.
    • Even without such systems, grassroots “mass movements” can challenge the billionaire-funded status quo.
    • “The contributions from as little as $1 ... shows that everyone sees themselves in this politics.” (Zoran, [15:04])
  • Kat echoes systemic urgency:
    • “We are living in a world where power is being consolidated by the most wealthy and the most powerful… If we continue on this path, we're going to get to a point where anyone wanting to run for office will have to cater to an oligarch.” (Kat, [15:27])

Looking Forward: Paths to Reform

• [15:47–17:00]
  • Akilah highlights ongoing legal and citizen-led efforts to challenge the post-Citizens United landscape (e.g., Montana ballot initiatives).
  • Local and state-based reforms, and campaigns that treat donors as neighbors rather than mere ATMs, offer glimpses of “how this could be better.”
  • “The future might be.” – Emphasizing potential, not reality.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's a goddamn nightmare.”
  — Kat Abughazaleh, describing campaign fundraising ([00:19], [03:58])
• “Instead of spending a bunch of money on consultants and ads, what if we combine voter outreach and mutual aid?”
  — Kat ([01:17])
• “The system is built to make it difficult for people that are not very rich and or very well connected to run for office.”
  — Kat ([03:58])
• “If you throw enough money at something, especially if you're listening to the same people who maybe haven't won an election in a decade or two ... then like, it's got to work sometime, right?”
  — Kat ([07:56])
• “Akilah, if you don't give me $5 right now, I, I will just, I'll die.” (mocking fundraising texts)
  — Kat ([10:36])
• “How much you make in X quarter is how a lot of the most powerful people in politics decide whether your campaign is viable.”
  — Kat ([11:01])
• “That changes so much of how you spend your time, what you have to spend your time with and who you then are accountable to in the campaign that you build.”
  — Zoran Mamdani on NYC’s public matching ([14:50])
• “We are living in a world where power is being consolidated by the most wealthy and the most powerful... we're going to get to a point where anyone wanting to run for office will have to cater to an oligarch in one way or another.”
  — Kat ([15:27])

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [00:00–01:17] Setting the stage: The role of money in politics, Kat’s fundraising approach.
• [03:58–06:36] The difficulties for non-wealthy candidates and personal costs of running.
• [07:56–08:42] How campaign finance incentivizes questionable spending.
• [09:04–11:01] FEC reports, the reality behind donations and campaign optics.
• [13:18–15:27] Zoran Mamdani on NYC’s matching system, potential for reform, and broader lessons.
• [15:47–17:00] Akilah reflects on state and grassroots fixes to systemic problems.

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Tone & Language

The episode’s tone is candid, frustrated yet hopeful, with moments of humor and exasperation. Kat is frank and often irreverent; Akilah is curious and incisive; Zoran brings optimistic practicality. The entire conversation deconstructs the myth that the US election system is accessible to all, while illuminating the possibility for change, especially from the ground up.

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Conclusion:
This episode offers an unvarnished, inside look at what it takes to run for office as a non-rich person in America. It’s a “how to” guide laced with warnings about a broken system—yet it also sketches out what could be better, if grassroots collective action and structural reforms take root.

Transcript

[Akilah Hughes]

This episode is about money in politics, something that you are now having to be very aware of. And we wanted to have you on to share what you've learned about campaign finance since entering the arena. You were talking a little bit about your small dollar donations, but what is that world like? And what are the ways that your opponents are sort of trying to raise money?

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

It's a goddamn nightmare.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

2024 was the most expensive election in American history. Over $20 billion spent, and Elon Musk alone dropped nearly 300 million to Bo Pac friends. Yuck. Meanwhile, regular people were still getting texts that said, friend, please Let me hold $5. Please let me hold a dollar. Let me hold something, or else the country is doomed. That contrast between oligarch money and burnout grassroots is where Kat Abu Ghazale comes in.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

My name is Kat Abu Ghazale. I'm running for Congress in the 9th district of Illinois. I am a researcher and journalist who covers the far right, and now I'm running for Congress.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

If her name sounds familiar, you've probably seen her on TikTok or YouTube, breaking down how Fox manipulates viewers. Now she's testing if that same digital fluency can compete in our current moneyed political environment. And she's using some pretty unconventional methods to raise money and take care of community members.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

We have raised over a million dollars, and our average donation is just 32 bucks. I am the only leading candidate to get the majority of my money from small dollar donations. And it has been very fun to do all of these things that I've thought, hey, why don't we do this in politics? For instance, instead of spending a bunch of money on consultants and ads, what if we combine voter outreach and mutual aid? So we've been doing that. Our campaign office doubles as a mutual aid hub. We've done events like a backpack drive where we also register kids, parents to vote or a kickoff event. We didn't ask for $500 a plate. We asked for pads and tampons for the Period collective. And it's just been so cool seeing that work in real time.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So how did she get here? In an ecosystem built to keep people like her out and running a scrappy, competitive campaign in a like Chicago.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

Yeah. So I started my career at Media Matters, watching Fox News every night. My specialty was Tucker Carlson. Yeah, definitely woof. I realized in early 2023 that most people get their information through video, and so I started making video explainers about what I was seeing during my work hours in my spare time. And those just Kind of took off. And then in 2024, Elon Musk's lawsuit against Media Matters for accurate reporting ended up costing the company a lot of money. And so I got laid off. I freelanced since then. I worked with Mother Jones, Teo news people for the American Way, and did my own work as well. And then I got deposed by Elon Musk. And that was fun. But through all of this, I and my colleagues have just been begging Democrats to understand that the old playbook is long gone and the threat of the right is real. Like, we told them about January 6th before it happened. We told them it would be that bad. We told them about COVID misinformation, about the big lie, about, you know, the threat of DEI narratives, all of this. And they just haven't listened. And so I got sick of waiting around for someone to do something. After Trump won, I might have naively thought, well, someone's gotta do something, right? Someone's gonna put up an actual resistance. And they didn't. And it was maddening seeing Elon Musk tear our government apart, especially as I and my colleagues have been used as a dry run for what he has been doing to the federal government. And so eventually, I just said, fuck it. I'll run.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

When we come back, I talk to Kat about how specifically she's navigated fundraising, and I chat with Zoran Mamdani about how New York City has made it easier for everyday people to seek office. So how are all of these rich people raising money for their campaigns? The same way they do everything else, by knowing other rich people.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

It's a goddamn nightmare. I can tell you that. I have learned a few things about campaign finance overall, and we can dive into whichever one you want first. The system is built to make it difficult for people that are not very rich and or very well connected to run for office. It is extremely inaccessible to run for office if you are poor. Second, the way that most politicians get their money is by dialing rich people, which kind of ties into the first one. We're actually launching a new project today to see if we can fundraise in a completely new way. And number three, the mutual aid stuff I was talking about, we could have been doing this the whole time. Politicians have chosen to spend their money in the way that they do, and I think it's time that we change it. So where do you want to start, Akilah?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Where I wanted to start was to learn more about dialing up those rich people.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

I learned pretty early on when I was setting up Campaign infrastructure. Usually the first question people will ask you is how many rich people can you call to ask for a max out donation on day one? So how many people can you ask for $7,000 on day one? That rubbed me the wrong way for about a billion reasons. Also, you do have to take some upfront costs that you can eventually expense to the campaign. But just setting up a website, for instance, costs money. It's also harder to navigate this entire area without help from either a lawyer or a compliance firm. And finding those resources in the first place takes time and money. And that's something that a lot of working class people don't have. Now, I am not the two criteria I mentioned of very rich or very well connected. I am neither of those. But I have a big platform that I've built myself. But it's still this huge privilege to start with. And I had a lot of faith in our message and what we wanted to build. And so that is how we started. It just kind of took off like gangbusters. And I think there was a huge appetite for a candidate that's willing to say, grow a fucking spine. Yeah, this is something a lot of people don't know. If you are a non incumbent candidate, meaning if you are challenging an incumbent or you're not already in, you know, this position, you can take a salary which is taken from the donations that you receive, that is calculated by half of your average income over the last five years. So if you've been making $200,000 for the last five years, then you've got a nice cushion, you got a hundred K so you can keep campaigning because it's really hard to campaign with a full time job. So you can do all that. If you are a dad to a family of four and you've been making 32K, which is the national poverty line for a family of four, that is cut to $16,000.

[Akilah Hughes]

Yeah, who can take that?

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

Exactly. You can't have your family's income like that for nothing. I have been freelancing. I've never earned over six figures. My job is inherently a conflict of interest. So I've had essentially zero income since starting this. I have just depleted my savings. I'm going into some debt and relying on my partner more than I would expect. And I'm just so grateful to have such a supportive partner. But a lot of people wouldn't be in this position. And even with all of the campaign donations we get and we're so grateful and that we're able to push forward, it is still so fucking hard trying to balance rent and healthcare and all of this stuff together.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And that's what these rich donors want, right? Because if they can push the 99% to the margins of the political process and crush their ability to run for anything, they're more likely to get what they want, which is tax breaks and permission to stop giving working class any benefits that might cost them those sweet, sweet yachts. So for those keeping track at home, being a person with any kind of modest income going into an election year makes it pretty damn difficult to stay afloat as a candidate in a race. But I was curious about what all goes into campaign finance, because obviously the money comes in, but what do campaigns spend on most?

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

A lot of campaign finance is inherently parasitic and it relies on consultants getting as much money as they possibly can get from any given campaign. And that's what it comes down to. That's why politicians use their money in the same ways that might have worked for this or that election, but are clearly not working anymore. But I think what it really comes down to is just this idea that if you throw enough money at something, especially if you're listening to the same people who maybe haven't won an election in a decade or two, right? But if you throw enough money and you listen to these guys that have been getting six figure paychecks for every campaign they work on, then like it's got to work sometime, right? The real answer is progressive populism. And so many of the most powerful in our society, that's the last thing they want because it would mean making a few million less dollars.

[Akilah Hughes]

You've been incredibly transparent, you know, documenting and educating people about your experience and the process, especially on, you know, your platform. On YouTube you published a video titled how to Read Campaign Finance Reports and what's in Mind and another one called the Stupid Politics behind FEC Reports. What do your campaign finance reports show that's different from your opponents in this race?

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

It's actually what my campaign finance reports don't show. I don't have a lot of my individual donations on there because the donations that are reported on FEC report are the ones over $200. The vast majority of my donations are under that threshold because people are donating $5 there, $8 there, 32 or 100 bucks there. What you'll see on a lot of candidates and even my opponents reports are most of their donations. And you can see exactly who is supporting a candidate with the most amount of money. Additionally, you can see expenditures and one of the things I said when I launched this campaign is like no grifty consultants. And then someone looked at our reports and they were like, it says consulting right there. And it's the people that send out our emails and texts which bring us back money. And their cut is essentially part of the way they're paid, is part of the money that they raise. And so like, there are some different things that you'll see in every single report for ours. You will see a focus on paying our staff a living wage wage, which is very hard in politics. We have a minimum wage of 25 an hour because that's what I think the minimum wage nationally should be. So you'll see a lot of our money paid towards staff. You'll also see our money paid towards outreach. And in terms of our donations, a lot of our itemized ones, the ones over 200, are people donating multiple times. So it goes over 200, which is just kind of fun to see, I guess.

[Akilah Hughes]

The other thing that we're curious about is like what you learned about the stupid politics behind FEC reports. You mentioned that these are the main reason why we get these frantic texts and emails from prominent politicians all the time, the ones that we try to block, but somehow there's just a new one every day.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

Akilah, if you don't give me $5 right now, I, I will just, I'll die.

[Akilah Hughes]

You're like, I need it, I need.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

It, please, I need it now. Yeah.

[Akilah Hughes]

I mean, why are they spending money in that way? Is that sort of going back to what you're saying about the consultants where it's like they just have so many that they have to be sending these out or, you know, what is the sort of end game? Because I know they're not getting any more from me after the first bit.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

Yeah. So this is going to make you go insane. It's like this almost incestuous idea of after a quarter, which is when the FEC reports that's what the whole deadline is each quarter of the year. How much you make in X quarter is how a lot of the most powerful people in politics decide whether your campaign is viable if you got this many donations versus that many donations. In fact, some people have criticized my campaign because they're like, okay, well you raised a lot of money, but there aren't enough max out checks, which means $7,000 donations. Obviously that is an indicator of how much a campaign can spend and is a factor in success. But it's not the only factor. Yet. Campaigns will put off paying people till after the quarter. So that way they can have as much money, as much cash on hand as possible. Even though it's like, it's all fake. This is like weird inside baseball shit that most people don't know or care about. And so you will see like, especially in the first quarter that a campaign launches. You'll see that they have like no expenses. And it's really confusing as to how now our first week, I actually got in a fight with my campaign manager over this because I wanted to launch on March 24th. It was just a gut feeling. And that was a week before the end of the quarter. And he was saying, I get that. But also, we'll only have eight days to fundraise and then people will think our campaign isn't viable. If you launched on April 1st or whatever that Monday was, then you'd have blah, blah, blah. I was just like, what better way to show that all of this is fake? Because none of this should matter. It shouldn't be about how many rich people you can call. It shouldn't be about a certain type of person that is poring over these reports and being like, well, that person is more of a viable than this person because they have this many rich people in their contacts. There are some ways that this is used by in like non shitty ways. A lot of endorsers, including unions, will look at FEC reports to determine if a candidate is viable because they might really like someone. But be like, hey, I'm not sure if that person can win in our system. Money is inherently part of that. The screwed up part is having to ask people for money because I want to get money out of politics.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I wanted to get another perspective on all of this from someone who has garnered a lot of attention in this culture. Current campaign cycle.

[Zoran Mamdani]

A year ago, very few people in New York knew about a 33 year old assemblyman named Saran Mamdani. Nobody knew who this guy was. He created an extraordinary and unprecedented grassroots movement.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

After the break, we hear from New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani. I caught up with Mamdani at his rally with AOC and Bernie Sanders. And I wanted to ask about what he's learned about campaign finance since entering the New York City mayoral race.

[Zoran Mamdani]

You know, I think first and foremost in New York City we have a campaign finance system 8 to 1 for donations for more than $10 for New York City residents. That was transformative, our ability to build this campaign because it meant that I could call New Yorkers and ask them for 2550. I called them for $250 and know that it would be multiple.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Quick sidebar. Since 2022 in New York, candidates for state office can opt in to receive public matching funds on small dollar in district contributions. There's a whole lot more math. But the purpose of this new campaign finance law is to engage more average voters rather than big billionaire donors, which is a good thing. Wait, did I identify something that's better?

[Zoran Mamdani]

That changes so much of how you spend your time, what you have to spend your time with and who you then are accountable to in the campaign that you build. But even if you're anywhere in the United States and you don't have a public matching system, I would still say that the power of creating large scale masters movement is one that can start to actually go toe to toe with the typical billionaire funded corrupt politics that we have in this country. And I think it's, it's really been a joy to see how many people see themselves in this campaign. The contributions from, you know, as little as $1 in just shows that everyone sees themselves in this politics. It's time to have that be the case for anyone across the country.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

We are living in a world where power is being consolidated by the most wealthy and the most powerful and they are getting wealthier and more powerful by the day. If we continue on this path, we're going to get to a point where anyone wanting to run for office will have to cater to an oligarch in one way or another. And I just don't think that should be the future we fight for.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So I ask again, how is it better to live under this Citizens United Supreme Court decision where the rich have a much easier time than ever in our country's history of bending policy to their will by the power of their purse? It's obviously not, but Zoran is right. There's a path forward in the way that cities like New York's laws and campaigns like Katz where she treats donors like neighbors and not ATMs work. And in states like Montana, there's a ballot initiative to basically rework the corporate charter, effectively limiting businesses abilities to use treasury funds for political spending. In other words, on a state by state basis, Citizens United could be weakened. And it may be in a corporation's best interest to come up with a mandate that makes it easiest for them to do business in all 50 US states. Cool. So too long. Didn't read. It's not better, but the future might be.

[Kat Abu Ghazale]

Sam.

[Akilah Hughes]

Thanks for listening to or watching. How is this better? Make sure you're following or subscribing on your platform of choice, including our very own YouTube [e-mail] howis this is and if you can leave a rating and review or comment on the episodes, because all of it is super helpful in spreading the reach of the show and we appreciate you. How Is this Better? Is written and hosted by me, Akilah Hughes. It's produced by Devin Maroney, video editing is by Shane Verkus, Kevin Dreyfus is Courier's National Managing Director and Executive producer RC Demezzo is their VP of Brand and Social, and Charlotte Robertson is the.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Deputy Director of Brand and Social.

[Akilah Hughes]

Samantha Hollows is the YouTube and podcast growth marketer and Marianne Kuga is the Director of Marketing. Tracy Kaplan is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution, and if you're interested in advertising or sponsoring, you can reach [e-mail] show artwork is by Danielle Deplato and original theme music is by Youth Seaswal.