It replenishes.
Jamelle Bouie 21, columnist for The New York Times, formerly chief political correspondent for Slate magazine, 2/5/21, "What is "political capital" anyway?" New York Times, ProQuest
In this telling, “political capital” is finite. When you spend it, you lose it, and if you spend it on the wrong things, you can’t get it back. But that doesn’t make any sense.
Actual “capital” isn’t spent; it is invested. The point is to get a return on that investment by directing capital to some productive use. The point of capital, in other words, is to produce more capital.
If we’re going to use the metaphor of “capital” in politics, then we should move away from thinking of it as a finite resource to spend as carefully as possible. Instead, we should think of political capital as all of the resources you have to make productive investments for your political party.
If those resources are slight, then you’ll want to invest carefully. But if you’re entering office with the wind at your back, with a popular mandate and a legislative majority, then you should invest as much as possible, in everything that might be promising. And if those investments pay off — if your policies work and are popular — then you’ll move forward with even more capital than you had.