Cliff Johnson released his first television ad this week with a narrator most candidates could only dream of landing.

Mississippi native Morgan Freeman.

The ad is inspiring, polished and very well done.

Then came the hard part. Getting people to see it.

Johnson, the Democratic nominee for Congress in Mississippi’s First District, says putting the ad on television across Mississippi for just one week costs more than $20,000.

That number says something larger about American politics.

Especially because Johnson is not an inexperienced candidate with limited connections.

He is a Columbia-trained lawyer, former Assistant U.S. Attorney, longtime civil-rights attorney and law-school teacher.

He has also built a serious campaign, raising substantial money almost entirely from individual contributions.

But despite that, as of his latest fundraising report, Johnson was still being outraised by his Republican opponent.

Running for Congress is supposed to be a battle of ideas.

But very quickly, it becomes a battle over who can afford to communicate those ideas.

Johnson has actually made that problem part of his campaign.

He joined End Citizens United’s “Unrig Washington” program.

Participants commit to rejecting corporate PAC contributions, supporting a ban on congressional stock trading, and seeking greater transparency around political spending.

But there is an obvious tension here.

Candidates need enormous amounts of money to tell voters that enormous amounts of money have too much influence over politics.

The problem can become even worse in races that national donors and political organizations do not view as top battlegrounds.

Money tends to chase races already believed to be competitive.

But candidates need money to demonstrate that they are competitive in the first place. That can create a bad cycle.

Voters will make their own judgment about Johnson on November 3.

But there is something worth recognizing about Johnson and other candidates willing to run races that conventional political money may view skeptically.

They still have to make enough people hear their ideas to give those ideas a chance.

But money isn’t the only way people can help candidates they believe in.

A donation helps, yes, even a small one. And recurring donations can help campaigns plan ahead.

But if you have no money to spare, that’s perfectly fine too.

You can follow their social media pages, share their videos, leave a kind comment, and tell people about them in your own life, not just online.

All of that helps candidates get heard!

People who believe Johnson belongs in Congress can support him in those ways.

But the larger point goes beyond any one candidate.

Our elections are supposed to be contests over ideas.

Those contests don’t work as well when the first contest is over who can afford to be heard.