After Mondale's loss, the New Democrats came up with a new model to win in a Republican-dominated era:

• Suck up to the big donors and raise lots of cash
• Spend that cash on TV ads and direct mail (expensive techniques)
• Try to convince moderate Republican voters to cross over and vote for you

The big donors were big business and the wealthy, and to get their support Democrats needed to support their agenda, which was neoliberalism and neoconservatism, the same agenda as the Republicans.

Thus was born the neoliberal/neoconservative consensus. The core agenda of the two parties was the same. They competed on wedge social issues and later on identity politics, neither of which were core concerns for the big donors.

This model has a high cost-per-voter. It's financially risky to target new or unreliable voters. Political consultants are highly paid to guide you in applying large amounts of money to carefully targeted reliable voters, poaching a handful of "swing" voters from the other side to achieve a 50%+1 victory. Voter participation drops since campaigns don't target new and unreliable voters, and once in office politicians don't serve them.

In the aftermath of AOC's primary victory, Cuomo and Pelosi said this was not about issues, it was identity politics. That's how they view the world -- all the winners are on the same page with the issues.

Crowley ran a conventional campaign (why wouldn't he?) and probably spent what he usually did. AOC ran a modern campaign of internet outreach, apps, videos in order to reach voters, in particular new and unreliable voters.

The polls were wrong, since they were looking at likely voters. I bet Crowley did win among likely voters. Polling works, but the likely voter models are black magic.

This modern campaign has a much lower cost-per-voter. That changes everything.

Lower cost per voter means an overall lower cost for the campaign (cries of anguish from the political consultants and traditional media). That means less or no reliance on big money donors and their agenda. Traditional media won't cover you if you don't buy ads, but that no longer means that you can't reach voters.

Bernie showed that you could run a big money campaign with small donations. How much better to run a small money campaign?

Lower cost per voter means you can risk targeting new and unreliable voters, who have different issues than the reliable (older, more conservative) voters. That expands the voter pool which can only be a good thing for democracy. That gives you a bigger potential pool of small donors. That lets you beat the polls, and keeps you under the radar (at least for now) until voting day.

The party establishment controls the game by controlling the money, media access, and the rules. Running a modern campaign denies them control of money and media access. Rules are written by the winners -- first you win, then you change the rules to help you keep winning. Thus has it ever been.

Members of winning campaigns get offered positions in other campaigns and take their techniques with them. Nothing succeeds like success.