Territorial pools are created nationwide for every office up for election. Every race has a certain amount of seed money deposited to get the pool started to help attract small donors. (Good publicity for big donors.)
Territorial Pool Case Study - It’s 120 days until the republican primary. The LD4 state house pool has been seeded by a big donor. He gave $2,000 to get it started. He’s a local business man and it improves his local image by trusting his donation to be directed by strangers. In 60 days the money will be released to 1 candidate. 150 small donors push the amount up to $5,000. Candidates A, B and C are neck & neck in the pools.
The collection of 150 small donors are granted access to LD4 state house pool chat room and message board. They can try and sway each others vote and discuss which candidate should receive the money. Most of the 150 small donors think the 2 leading candidates (candidates A & B) are frauds and try and sway votes to send the money to candidate C. On the maturation date they vote and candidate C wins the money. It’s sent to Candidate C’s campaign. Candidate C then uses the victory as a selling point. “My competitors aren’t trusted by the people. They are establishment republicans backed by big donors.”
Also, confident candidates could say, “I donated to the pool myself and got it started because I trusted the people would believe in my campaign enough to send it back. I have faith in the people and put my money where my mouth is.”