This National Journal piece from Josh Kraasner reports a couple intriguing, interlocking claims about the dynamics shaping the looming Republican primary contests.

He notes that large donors are not participating heavily for various reasons, in part because in crowded primary fields they are waiting to see who the nominee will be. As a result, mainstream candidates are in a bit of a bind. If they are wealthy, they can self-finance. If not, they would have to appeal to the extremes of the party by trying to appeal to small donors:

At the same time, if candidates are unable to self-fund, their next-best option might be to appeal to small-dollar donors by playing to the more extreme elements of the Republican electorate, reaching them through alarmist online fundraising. In doing so, they undercut their own brand. One prospective Republican Senate recruit with deep connections in politics, surveying the political landscape in his swing state, told National Journal he couldn’t raise enough money to run a competitive race without tarnishing his image in the process.

The mainstream candidates who do not want to move to the extremes are thus the self-funders. Kraasner’s analysis is that this is why so many more mainstream Republican candidates are now self-funders. There would a lot to unpack to confirm this analysis, but it’s an interesting suggestion about how small donors might be affecting the types of candidates who choose to compete in the primaries.