Campaign Tips

Over the years, we have seen folks develop some bad political campaign habits.  But the good news is that many of these bad campaign habits can be prevented by good organization and a focus on fundamentals. Read the list below so you can spot the warning signs and keep your political campaign on track.

Whether it is your first or last advocacy or political campaign, one thing never changes—numbers matter. Learn what campaign metrics you need to track.

Starting a campaign is a huge challenge and will prove to be much different than any other job you've ever had. It is hard work and you don’t get to clock out like you would a regular 9 – 5. Starting a campaign means being fully committed and putting the rest of your life on hold. Below are a few other things that every staffer should know before starting a campaign.

Below, you’ll find a complete list of campaign job descriptions that you might find in a race of moderate size.

Political campaigns have a number of options when it comes to political advertising. Which political advertising medium a campaign chooses depends largely on their strategic objectives, targets, and, of course, budget. Below is a very general overview of the most common modern candidate campaign communication mediums and their pros and cons.

A campaign logo is something that many candidates obsess about. The color, the font, the stressing of the first vs. the last name, incorporating a candidate photo or a sprit animal, we’ve heard it all. I like a good campaign logo, but this is a time in which many first-time candidates get taken advantage of. Yes, the campaign’s brand is undoubtedly important and it is worth some conversation, but it should not be a long, arduous, drawn-out process. With that said, here are a few important items to consider when you’re designing your campaign logo.

We understand what it’s like to operate a campaign on a tight budget, so we’ve found some free tools to include in your campaign toolbox to help you along the way.  We hope you will find them useful as you launch your campaign or look for ways to better organize it. to ve clear no campaign tool will solve all of your campaigns problems.  Whether fundraising for a nonprofit, managing an independent expenditure campaign, or seeking office, a few of these tools will surely help you along your way.

One of the roles I enjoy most is teaching folks how to run for office and run campaigns. Any campaign training we run usually starts with essential political consulting advice on the three key resources of a campaign. The three main resources you have in any campaign are people, time and money. Below are descriptions of each of these three critical campaign resources.

Advocacy campaigns get inspired by GOTV.  Get Out The Vote, has come a long way. A good GOTV program can give a political campaign a big lift and those tactics are now being used for advocacy. you can read more about GOTV techniques here and here. GOTV techniques have transcended their former use as “valued election tools”, and are now the core component of modern GOTV Tactics.

Is your campaign doing opposition research? We’ve already talked about the importance of self-research for your political campaign here, and about the basics of opposition research for a political campaign. But, what do you do when your opposition research backfires?

Running for office, campaign management, and working on campaigns for that matter, are really about making quick, informed decisions and a lot of them. Particularly at the beginning, there are a lot of things to decide on right away in your campaign management process: what office, what party, who to hire, who to target, what medium, who to call for money, how much to ask for, etc. The whole process can get away from you and turn into a paralyzing rumination if you’re not careful.

Political Campaigns usually don't work alone. It’s highly likely that you are not the only political campaign being waged in your turf at any given time. Things can get especially dicey when you have to share a turf, and also run your political campaigns out of the same party headquarters.