It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a Saturday diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
If you’ve read this series over the last several years, we’ve followed a campaign from beginning to end, how to work on building successful small advocacy organizations, and the ins and outs of a smart campaign.
This year, we’re focusing on recruiting: How is it we find the candidates we need? Over the next six months, we’re going to talk about all the work that goes into building a good candidate base from top to bottom. I’m going to go through some of the myths and the lore that confuse people about recruiting.
Before we even start recruiting, though, we have to talk about the inbuilt candidate pipeline and where our efforts go in assuring good elections next year, the year after, and years from now.
The inbuilt pipeline
Over the years, I have talked frequently about making sure every race is challenged if at all possible. Despite naysayers who have argued to “let sleeping dogs lie” by not challenging conservative Republicans in conservative districts, more data indicates that giving people someone to vote for causes as near to zero harm as possible to our overall objectives, and is more often helpful in motivating and turning out our own base.
Before any organization starts recruiting, many districts which are seen as possible opportunities for Democratic gains quickly fill up with self-recruited candidates. No one needs to tell people there is an opportunity—candidates will find them and fill those chances.
This is why in 2018 you had a large number of Democratic primaries: People knew there was an opportunity. It is why there will be a large number of Democratic candidates for U.S. president, because people can sense the opportunity.
The inbuilt pipeline is not going to be a focus of this series, but being aware of it can help you effectively deploy what resources you have.
The organizations involved
Recruiting candidates can be done by a state or local party organization, party-affiliated organizations, outside advocacy groups, or even just one person acting on their own. In most states, the state or local party does not control who runs. Anyone willing to pay the filing fee is on a primary or general election ballot, depending on the race.
While high-profile races have their own recruiting system, including national recruiting systems, as always Nuts & Bolts focuses on much smaller races, mostly state house and lower, including community-level races. In these races for offices like school board, city council, county commission, or state house, the most important organization involved in candidate recruiting is not a party or and advocacy group, it is a network: i.e. the connections of friends, precinct committee members, and community advocates who know their neighbors and have real influence over their friends
The keys to building a candidate pipeline
Developing a strong candidate pipeline is a lot like developing a good business. To build those candidates these three steps are critical:
- Make becoming a candidate easy. If people believe that it is overly difficult or burdensome to become a candidate, you will find it far more difficult to attract candidates. Showing people that you have supported past candidates and you are willing to support them as a candidate is a key step.
- Follow up. Don’t assume just one contact is enough to get someone thinking about and finally deciding to run. Stay in contact, keep the connection. Even if they don’t run for office this cycle, they might later, and even if they never run, you’ve recruited another potential activist, donor, precinct person, or canvasser for future campaigns.
- Be honest about what is involved. Becoming a candidate at any level is a major undertaking. It may seem easy to downplay the amount of work that goes into a campaign. This is very short-sighted. Disgruntled former candidates who believe they were blindsided by work expectations will be incredibly harmful to future recruiting efforts.
What lies ahead?
In order to build up candidate recruiting, I’m dividing the first six months of Nuts & Bolts this year into segments:
- January—Local boards including school boards, water boards, county boards, and special districts.
- February—Recruiting for county offices including sheriff, district attorneys, county commissions
- March—Specialty recruiting
- April-June— Building our state houses
Next Week: The importance of your local school board