Welcome back, Saturday Campaign D-I-Yers! 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.
When campaigns launch, some of the early decisions about who you invite to work on your campaign can influence later decisions by putting influencers in the room. Campaigns listen to all of the voters in their district, for sure, but few people have daily access to a candidate or represent the campaign to the public like your staff or top volunteers.
While you can’t always control who volunteers in your campaign, having a staff that looks like your district can make a big difference in what people think about your campaign and the kind of race you run.
Diversity is a strength
The old phrase goes: never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. It is also difficult to understand the issues that face members of your electorate if you surround yourself with a campaign staff that doesn’t look like your district. Unfortunately, too many Democratic campaigns find themselves sorting out to be overly white, overly older, cisgender, and with no representation by persons with disabilities.
Democratic campaigns don’t need to construct themselves as a matter of checkboxes, which tokenizes people to make sure that you have voices in the room. Campaigns, however, should stay aware of both their community and their campaign workers and make sure they aren’t turning away voices that need to be heard within their group.
Even among your non-campaign staff (i.e. your volunteers), work for roles that celebrate the diversity within your district. The most effective way to reach out to voters in your district is through direct networking. The more people involved in your campaign who represent different areas of your community, the larger your reach.
Monochrome campaigns fail
Campaigns where all members are very tight-knit friends who have known each other “forever” and have similar experiences—well, those are the campaigns that are blind to a large number of issues in their community. Many campaigns become bound up by their own friends or family members as the only real voices in the campaign.
When the voices around you have the same life experiences you have, it is very difficult to appreciate the different needs in your district. If your campaign looks like you and has the same experiences as you, then it is hard to get the perspectives you need in a way that will sink in and make an impact. Meetings that last an hour or two once a month do not provide you with the opportunity to grow—not just as a better campaigner, but as a better candidate.
Unique perspectives shape campaigns
Campaigns win if they connect with voters. Connecting with voters is a lot easier if you actually understand voters, and not just as a data point. Unique perspectives provided by individuals with their own life stories, which can be perspectives of gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, creed, color, socioeconomic status: all of them provide you a unique perspective.
Having diversity fill your phone bank, canvass, and campaign staffs helps bring those perspectives to your campaign and helps show a community that Democratic candidates walk the talk. We have to do more than talk about being inclusive and welcoming. We have to actually BE those things.
Campaigns who do those things win or lose also set an example going forward of the expectations future campaigns should set about how to participate in the community. And through their work they bring those unique perspectives into ongoing Democratic efforts, from Democratic partner organizations to outside activism and even just online communities.
Final thoughts
Your campaign needs to look like your district, not like your family and friends. If you keep that simple statement in mind, you’ll have a much healthier campaign.
Next week: The party doesn’t like me? You can win as an outsider.