You direct a coalition, not a candidate. Your slate is already picked and already rooted where they live. Sweep all five if you can, but the board is won at three, and everything below is about making sure of the three first.
Before anything happens you label all five races: two to Contest, two to Maintain, one to Underfund. And you do it partly blind. Some precincts start in fog, and a fogged precinct tells you the mood and nothing more until you work it with Door Knocking or Meet the Parents.
It makes your money and your influence plays land harder than they otherwise would, and in a race decided by a handful of votes that's the difference.
Two of these, pointed at the right two races, is most of a winning board.
An edge only changes an outcome in a race that was going to be decided by an edge. A favorable race doesn't need it, and a hopeless one won't be rescued by it.
Spend it on the wrong race and you've spent your sharpest tool on a result you already had.
It isn't a concession, it's a priority. Every dollar you don't spend here is a dollar in the seat you actually need.
A director who funds all five equally has, in effect, funded none of them.
Everything you do there is blunted, so helping it costs more than it's worth, and you'll watch it slip away in real time.
Pick wrong under fog and you've written off a race you'd have won.
Money is the only lever that works in every race at once, and the early tiers are genuinely cheap. A modest amount, sensibly placed, moves a race.
Two races funded sensibly beat one race funded lavishly, and it isn't close.
The instinct to make a race certain is exactly the instinct that costs you the board.
The money you spent removing your last doubt would have bought a whole second seat somewhere else.
Influence compounds, and a race you stabilize in the first round is a race you aren't rescuing in the third.
A lead bought in round one gets calmly bought back in round three while you stand there broke.
The rival is rationing. If you aren't, you're handing it the last word.
Two kinds of move. Focus plays are free but strictly rationed. Money actions cost cash and no focus, so you can run them in as many precincts as the budget allows, once per precinct each round. Knowing which is which is most of the game.
It hands you, for free, what you'd otherwise have to buy. Best value on the board, and it isn't close.
In a race where the budget is the binding constraint, a play that costs nothing is worth more than it looks. It also clears the fog: that precinct's real numbers show from then on.
One of your very few focus plays, and it only touches a single precinct.
It won't rescue a race on its own.
Cheap, repeatable, and it never touches your focus budget, which means it's the play you can actually afford to run again and again.
It also clears the fog in that precinct. It's the quietest way this game is won.
You won't see it working. The number won't move and the poll won't reward you.
That's the whole problem with turnout, in this game and in life.
No focus play, and behind a strong communicator it's worth every dollar. It's how a media-friendly candidate converts their one real advantage into votes.
It costs meaningfully more than door-knocking, and behind a quiet candidate it's simply the worse buy.
You're paying a premium for a discount.
The only play that takes something off them instead of adding to you. In a race you're losing narrowly, that's the only lever that closes the gap from both ends.
It's a matchup, not a coin flip. Some of these people are almost impossible to embarrass, and swinging at one of those is a wasted turn.
And you have very few turns.
It multiplies what you've already built, which makes it worth more in a race that's already close than any flat bonus would be.
It multiplies what you have, so in a race where you have nothing, it gives you nothing.
And behind a candidate who can't talk, you're taking the small version of a bonus that was available in the large.
Money is the binding constraint in this game, and this is the only play that adds to it. How much it raises depends on your whole slate's fundraising.
One of your very few focus plays, spent on a turn where the board doesn't move at all.
And the haul is small: a few thousand dollars at best, often less than a single Door Knock costs.
Court the Press buys you better coverage next round, without spending a dollar.
Mobilize sends every volunteer you've banked into your tightest race as turnout. Your slate banks more each round on its own, more with candidates who bring bodies.
Mobilize empties the bank, and it picks the race for you: whichever is tightest when you press it. It's a payout, not an investment.
Your coalition endorsed five people and rooted them where they live. You can't move them. What you can do is point the right play at the right one, because they're not interchangeable and the plays notice.
Mail and forums land harder behind them. Spend your media money where somebody can carry it.
A slate full of fundraisers makes passing the hat worth a turn. A slate without them barely gets anything from it.
And some can't. That decides who you can hit with dirt, and it decides who the rival is going to hit.
They bank volunteers for you every round, and Mobilize spends them. Like door-knocking, it won't show in the poll. It shows on the night.
Take the fourth and fifth seat if they come to you. Never at the cost of the third.
Certainty in one race is paid for with the seat you didn't fund.
If you could see every number, the triage would be arithmetic. You can't, so it's judgment. Work your close precincts early with Door Knocking or Meet the Parents and the fog lifts.
Scandals land on the vulnerable. Forums pay the fluent. Lose the board, and you can usually name the decisions that lost it.
Contest the two that look close. Fund them sensibly, not lavishly. Then count to three.