Granted, the gubernatorial race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin (a fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump who is clumsily pretending to be moderate) is getting some national money and attention. But races further down the ballot are woefully neglected. Critical House of Delegates races are thus far flying under the radar, and Democratic leaders aren’t doing much to change that. The fundraising numbers don’t lie: No Democrat in a competitive House race in the state has more than $450,000 on hand, and most have much less than that as they head into the home stretch of their campaigns.

That’s particularly shameful because Virginia Democrats have a impressive track record for a moderate state. Over the last several years, they’ve expanded Medicaid, passed measures banning workplace discrimination over sexual orientation, returned the right to vote to 200,000 ex-prisoners, increased education spending, capped the price of insulin, largely decriminalized marijuana, and more. This is solid campaign material and a good proof of concept that Democrats can win if they do things rather than sitting on their hands.

But they still need money for advertising, canvassing, and so on. The national party’s neglect is all the more frustrating because state legislative campaigns are comparatively cheap. A whole House of Delegates election typically costs in the mid-six figures — not nothing, but chump change compared to a congressional race. “In the last 20 days these candidates need resources to get their message out, and they’ll only spend close to 1 percent of what a U.S. Senate candidate does,” Aaron Kleiman, director of research for the States Project, which works on state-level campaigns, told The Week.