Are Repubs purposefully not fielding candidates in cities to reduce Dem turnout?

[TreasonousBastard]

2. It's possible, but someone is thinking too hard...

campaigns are expensive and a lot of work. Just the filing fees and signature collection before the campaign starts would be enough to turn off most people from a fool's errand. Then there's the opening your life to scrutiny and the humiliation of defeat after it's all over.

Running a local political campaign is expensive and hard work and in local elections there's rarely any paid staff to do the heavy lifting. I just ran for local office and we had to come up with money for office rent, phones, local advertising and signs... And then everyone out there running had to spend time doorknocking, phoning, speechmaking and hanging out in front of the post office and supermarket. And convince friends and other volunteers to help out.

Not one of us running or otherwise working got paid for this and with some of us it interfered with our regular jobs. We are now exhausted. And we lost 11 out of 13 races even though we had the best shot this year we've had in memory.

Nah, it's tough enough to find candidates to put up with this crap and even tougher to find money to finance it with no chance of winning. They just put their resources into places they think they can win and there's no conspiracy about it.

(The conventional view often has a lot going for it.)