In a blue wave midterm that swept Democrats into power in previously Republican strongholds, even major money couldn’t make the difference, and one race in North Carolina is the perfect example.In North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District, which stretches from the suburbs of Charlotte to the Western North Carolina mountains, Democratic political newcomer LaKesha Womack unseated Rep. Tim Moore, the influential former state House speaker who helped draw the district and dominated it in 2024.Moore outraised Womack more than 50 to 1, with a war chest of $3 million compared to $59,000 raised by his Democratic opponent, according to Axios. Even still, Womack narrowly beat out Moore in the midterm election Tuesday by about 6,400 votes, ending the Republican’s time in Congress after just one term.The win was particularly striking because Moore, who served for more than two decades in the North Carolina House—and served the longest ever stint as speaker of the state House—helped redraw the district in 2023, and the following year, he won it by about 16 percentage points, according to the Washington Post.Womack, an entrepreneur and the founder of Womack Consulting Group, said despite being outspent, she used her limited funds to attend between five and seven events per week in the district she aimed to represent, according to an interview with Spectrum News.“A lot of that money was spent on gas,” she said. “I made sure that I showed up everywhere across this district.”Rep. Moore did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.In a statement to Fortune, Womack said this week’s victory was “a testament to the power of ordinary people who believe that their voices matter and that leadership should be rooted in service, accountability, and opportunity for all.”Womack’s unlikely success helped propel Democrats to their strongest performance in North Carolina in years. In the U.S. Senate race, former Gov. Roy Cooper trounced former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley in a win that helped his party secure a majority in the Senate.Despite the Republican-controlled state legislature’s recent effort to skew congressional districts in their party’s favor, Democrats also flipped at least five, and potentially six Republican-held seats, potentially reversing the state’s 10-to-four Republican majority in Congress to favor Democrats. Democrats also won a majority of seats in the state’s House of Representatives for the first time since 2010, while Republicans lost their veto-proof supermajority in the state Senate.“It’s a total wipeout across the board,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinelli told the Washington Post, adding that the Republicans’ midterm losses could be chalked up to “a total referendum on the president and voters being livid about the prices, the war and immigration.”Courtesy of LaKesha WomackMoney’s limitsWomack’s success in North Carolina was part of a larger trend across the U.S. that saw Democratic challengers win despite being outraised by Republican opponents. In the end, money and favorable election maps were seemingly overwhelmed by voters’ frustrations with President Trump, affordability, and other issues. An exit poll conducted by NBC News found that three-fourths of voters rated the economy as “poor” or “not so good” and 65% said President Trump’s policies had made the economy worse. Beyond North Carolina, these issues boosted Democrats in races nationwide where they were heavily outraised by their Republican opponents. That includes Democrat Victoria Broderick’s unlikely edge over longtime Republican Rep. Scott DesJarlais in Tennessee. Broderick raised $94,000 compared with DesJarlais’ $660,000 through mid-October, according to Axios. Just two years earlier, DesJarlais defeated Broderick by 40 percentage points. Yet, as of Wednesday, Broderick was beating DesJarlais by 280 votes, according to the New York Times. A recount will only be called if a candidate challenges the outcome.In Alabama, Democrat Allison Montgomery won a state House race after raising about $23,000. That’s about a tenth of the $215,000 raised by the Republican incumbent Phillip Rigsby. Another Democrat in a state race, Nell Brown, won a seat in the Alabama House of Representatives despite raising just $11,000 to her opponent’s $185,000.In the governor’s race in Georgia, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms also defeated billionaire Republican Rick Jackson, who poured more than $200 million of his own fortune into the race. Pro-Jackson groups spent or reserved nearly $76 million in TV airtime, as compared with about $8 million for Bottoms and her allies.Even the world’s richest man couldn’t always make the difference. Elon Musk put at least $447 million toward electing Republicans. Just three of the 37 Republican House candidates Musk supported had won as of Thursday, and 33 had lost, Reuters reported. Another race in which a Republican candidate backed by Musk for the House was leading, was yet to be decided, according to the outlet. Six of the seven Senate candidates Musk backed also lost, with one race, the Senate race in Alaska still undecided, though Democrat Mary Peltola was slightly ahead with nearly three-fourths of the votes counted as of Thursday, according to the New York Times.The most expensive election everWhile greater spending in midterm races didn’t guarantee victories for either party, more money has been shown to increase a candidate’s likelihood of getting elected. A 2022 study by Danielle Thomsen, a professor of political science at the University of California—Irvine found that top fundraisers win their primaries 92% of the time. The 2026 midterm election was the most expensive election in U.S. history, with about $12 billion spent on political advertising, according to data by AdImpact cited by NPR. Still, a 2024 study published in the peer-reviewed American Political Science Review, using ad-testing platform Swayable, found that it’s difficult to predict the effectiveness of any one campaign based on past results. In fact, during the midterms, some negative political advertising has led to backlash, including a controversial advertisement by Ohio governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that featured the estranged birth mother of his opponent, Amy Acton, who later went on to beat him in the election Tuesday.Still, Womack, the winner of the North Carolina race, said her win reflected the value of an investment that couldn’t be measured in campaign contributions.“Just being present in the community, I think, meant more than dollars could ever pay for,” she told Spectrum News.This story was originally featured on Fortune.com