A political campaign offers an empowering and worthwhile experience, but it’s also fast-paced and requires a variety of skills. Understanding what it takes to win a race can help you determine whether this type of work is right for you.
Create a list of key issues and stances that you will communicate during your voter and donor outreach, debates and more. Using this messaging can help you connect and resonate with your audience.
- Determine Your Vision and Values
Whether a candidate works on a national or local campaign, it is essential to understand and accurately target the voter base. This will allow them to craft a political message and strategy that resonates with the electorate.
This involves determining what policy issues are most important to voters and how they relate to the candidate’s own views, policies, and background experiences. Candidates should clearly articulate these values and vision in public appearances and campaign messaging.
Candidates should also assess the voting landscape and determine how much support they will need to win, which is known as their vote goal. This will guide many decisions throughout the campaign, including how much money to raise and which communication channels to use.
- Develop Your Message
A political campaign requires a clear, inspiring message that motivates voters to donate and volunteer. A professional website serves as an essential portal for this purpose, allowing people to easily connect with the candidate.
Identify your vision and values, and determine the issues that are most important to you and your voters. Choose your stance on these issues and incorporate them into your messaging.
This messaging will be used in your persuasion universe (voters you need to convince to vote for you), mobilization universe (voters you need to encourage to get out the vote), and GOTV efforts. Winning campaigns communicate this message with frequency and in creative ways that resonate with each audience.
- Conduct Voter Research
Whether you are running for office or just want to influence policy and the political discourse, you need to understand what voters care about. This will inform your messaging, strategy, and tactics.
Research your confirmed and potential opponents to find out their stances on issues, voting records, public advocacy, and more. This information will help you to differentiate your campaign from theirs in conversations with voters, supporters, and donors.
Determine your vote goal (or win number) to drive other parts of your campaign, including volunteer recruitment and mailer distribution. Calculate this early to ensure you’re spending time speaking with people who can support or be persuaded by your message.
- Organize Your Team
A campaign requires a team to help with fundraising, field organizing and communications. In addition, some campaigns also need people to help run and oversee the daily operations of the campaign.
Developing a comprehensive campaign timeline will help everyone stay focused and on task. This will include important dates like your campaign’s public launch, voter registration deadlines and early voting days.
A political job board or listserv may be a good place to start looking for staff members. Candidates can also leverage their personal networks or professional connections or reach out to local political parties and elected officials. The goal is to create a team that can support your objectives.
- Fundraise
A political campaign requires a lot of money to run. It’s essential for candidates and organizations to raise funds using various strategies while staying within campaign finance laws.
One common fundraising strategy is to host events that attract a specific group of donors. These events can range in size, price, time of day, and venue.
Another popular method is crowdfunding, which involves encouraging supporters to contribute small amounts of money online. To maximize the effect of crowdfunding, create a compelling campaign description and promote it on social media.
Finally, personal solicitation by telephone is an old-fashioned but effective way to reach out to high-prospect donors. Be sure to prepare scripts and train volunteers carefully.
- Campaign Efforts
Once you’ve determined how much money you need to raise, identify who will oversee fundraising strategies and decide on methods your campaign will use to communicate with donors. This is often a finance director or treasurer, but smaller campaigns may have volunteers handle this task.
Using what you’ve learned from voter research, refine your campaign message and determine how to reach voters. For example, if you find that your target voters are highly interested in a particular issue area, adjust your campaign messaging to reflect this interest.
Consider texting your supporters and voters to encourage them to take action, such as attending an upcoming event or voting early. This can be a cost-effective way to communicate with your audience.
- Organize Voters
If you’re running for a local office, consider hosting town halls or public appearances to engage with voters and address their concerns. These opportunities can also increase your visibility and credibility.
Determine how many votes you need to win and focus on your vote goal throughout the campaign. This will inform many campaign decisions; from how many doors you knock on to what kind of mailers you send out.
Once you know which voters to target, frame your messaging to sway or mobilize them. For example, persuasion targets may include voters who don’t usually vote or identified Democrats that you need to turn out this year. Mobilization targets could include likely or identified supporters who can help your campaign out by volunteering.
- Organize Supporters
A political campaign can have a national or local scope or an issue-based focus. Issue-based campaigns focus on a specific policy area by advocating for change or raising awareness, such as climate action groups or anti-racism initiatives.
Organizing supporters is essential for a successful campaign. This may involve calling donors and asking them to support the candidate, arranging fundraisers, spreading the word about upcoming campaign events, or mobilizing supporters to vote on election day.
Campaigns should also consider capturing voters’ voting intentions when they canvass so that the team can target areas where the campaign has a stronghold. This will allow the campaign to focus on its persuasion and get-out-the-vote efforts in these key areas.