Money is important, but there's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to lobbying and campaigning. Elon's success at putting candidates into office isn't great, despite flooding massive amounts of cash into several elections.

Candidates themselves and the way they campaign matters more. Cuomo had 3x the warchest than Mamdani had, for example.

Small dollar donations can also level the playing field for candidates that can gain some national appeal (this does come with its own set of problems and perverse incentives, though)