Welcome back, Saturday Campaign D-I-Y’ers! For those who tune in, welcome to the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic campaign. Each week, we discuss issues that help drive successful campaigns. If you’ve missed prior diaries, please visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
With only weeks away from two special elections in Kansas KS-04, where Democratic candidate James Thompson runs against Trump elector Ron Estes and Georgia GA-06, where Jon Osoff makes his case, now is the ideal time to look at what the party as a whole can learn through special elections, and why special elections and spring elections are often the testing ground for new strategies and tools.
Special elections can occur for a variety of reasons beyond presidential appointments. These include death or illness of a legislature, criminal behavior, or a decision to run for another office in a different category.
When special elections occur, a compressed schedule can create unique complications and opportunities for campaigns. They also give Democratic party members a chance to build the party and outreach in a normally down period.
Compressed schedules increase the importance of a field campaign
In a long form, traditional campaign, you’re going to see a lot of attention paid to TV ad campaigns, lots of campaign stops, speaking engagements and outreach. Special elections do not provide a year’s plus notice. As a result, the time that would be used to conduct a longstanding air war or to conduct an earned media campaign gets much more difficult. While those elements will still be important, the compressed schedule means that direct outreach through an effective field plan skyrockets.
Special election turnouts are often significantly lower than all other scheduled elections. The general rule of thumb is that a special election turnout runs about 70 percent or less of a non-presidential year turnout. As a result, making sure that you get your voters to the poll is the most important element in a special election, and so an active field plan becomes job number one.
This year, outrage among the Democratic faithful is helping to change this traditionally accepted model. Jeff Singer here at Daily Kos, highlights the change in one market:
This one is a done deal: with only one precinct to go, the margin is still 59-41, a raw vote edge of over 2100 votes.
Side note: turnout in this Saturday special election is likely to eclipse the district turnout in the 2014 general election, the last election in this particular legislative district. Both a U.S. Senate and U.S. House race were on the ballot on that day.
With upcoming races in Kansas, Georgia, and Montana, as well as special election state & local races in numerous states, like Missouri, we get a test of how well a campaign’s field efforts have worked out for them. Can campaigns in Kansas, Montana, and Georgia capitalize on the energy? Well, the only way to do that for sure is through an aggressive field campaign, as the compressed schedule makes other traditional efforts tricky to implement.
Registration services
Campaigns taking part in a special election effort will often pay special attention to new voter registration and address moves. This is due to the fact that according to the National Realtor’s association and others, spring is often peak buying and selling time for a home. It is also the time period where more people decide to move.
This means that those same individuals will need to be re-registered as a voter, or can be registered for the first time inside your district.
Special elections provide not just the campaign, but the party, a chance to clean up data and make sure their voters are registered for future elections at their new residence.
While keeping track and working to make sure our voters are registered is an ongoing effort, special elections often provide a unique opportunity to allow a party and campaign the chance to identify voters and make sure they don’t just vote in the special election, but that they are part of the party building efforts for the future.
Trying something new? Special elections are often ideal.
Many special elections, thanks to gerrymandering, are seen as done-deal races before they happen. This is especially true in cases where a Republican or Democratic candidate is picked to serve in a state or federal administration and chosen from a “safe” district.
These races present opportunities to try new techniques with very little risk—if you know the odds are strongly for or against your candidate, why not use this opportunity to try new technologies, outreach efforts, or be a test subject for campaign strategies?
These test runs can often help establish future adoption of technology or prevent adoption of bad strategies. Through special elections, open testing of digital campaign access, like MobileVAN and Organizer came to light. In special elections, candidates tried and tested ad buys on alternative media networks, as well as running atypical candidates who might appeal to different voters.
Special elections can be a great trial balloon to find out—with minimal risk and lots of upside—how you might proceed going into the next special election.
Final Thoughts
Special elections, due to their compressed timeframe, should make Democratic party members unhappy with unlimited money in campaigns happy. The time frame means that massive amounts of money would be difficult (though not impossible) to spend, and as a result, a strong ground game and direct voter outreach will be the most important element.
Special elections also give an opportunity to evaluate new or young campaign staff and see how they react and work with the candidate or party. Many great campaign minds have been given their first opportunity through a special election, and identifying them and being able to hold onto those staff members for the next election certainly benefits the state and national party.
With multiple special elections at the federal and state level upcoming, there are plenty of opportunities for you to make an impact nationally. Whether you want to phone bank for James Thompson in Kansas, or send some mail on behalf of Rob Quist in Montana, or just spread the word about Jon Osoff, you’ll find that you as an interested party can make a lot more impact in a traditionally low turnout race.
And the biggest way you can do that is by following up on what happened in New Hampshire, and making sure that for the Democratic candidate, the traditional low-turnout doesn’t happen.
Next Week on Nuts & Bolts: the power of city & county offices.
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Nuts & Bolts: Building Democratic Campaigns
Contact the Daily Kos group Nuts and Bolts by kosmail (members of Daily Kos only).
Every Saturday this group will chronicle the ins and outs of campaigns, small and large. Issues to be covered: Campaign Staffing, Fundraising, Canvass, Field Work, Data Services, Earned Media, Spending and Budget Practices, How to Keep Your Mental Health, and on the last Saturday of the month: “Don’t Do This!” a diary on how you can learn from the mistakes of campaigns in the past.
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