It's much more efficient to leverage the existing party infrastructure than to run as a solo independent or try to create a 3rd party.
Party elections (for instance, county committee elections) draw much less turnout and can be swayed much more easily by an organized group.
I think of David Brat beating House Speaker Jared Cantor in 2014 as being the canary in the coalmine.
There's never an apples to apples comparison, but Cantor had Brat outraised by over 20 to 1, and Brat beat him. On top of that, campaign messages are more and more delivered and received via free mediums, like YouTube, which brings the cost of a campaign down tremendously.
Apparently the town council elections are coming up soon, with several slots available. If I'm reading through this data correctly, it would take about 2% of the town's residents to vote for a council member to knock out the incumbents, based on last year's election. Someone somewhat active in the community can probably arrange that.
> Today, 40% of state legislature races go uncontested and the problem is worse at the local level. There is a crisis of leadership occurring in our democracy. We need more people to lead. We need more people to run for office.
> Run for Office is a free service that provides all the tools you need to launch a successful campaign whether you are a seasoned veteran or first—time campaigner.
You won't "launch a successful campaign" if you are a nobody running against an incumbent who is supported by the dominant political party in a bright red or deep blue state. You'd need to be a seasoned veteran with wide name recognition who is very well connected, well liked, and also wealthy, but then you're not likely to be using this tool.
It's in the races where the incumbent is not running for reelection, the position is nonpartisan, or there's a lot of turnover that someone could say "Hey, I have a chance at that spot."