It’s another Sunday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a 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. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we tackle how to improve and build better campaigns or explain issues that impact our party.
This week I had originally planned to cover the Democratic Party platform process, but instead, today we are covering the impact of the coronavirus on the 2020 campaign. Forget the impact it will have in the fall: The virus is already having a significant impact right now. For example, we’ve seen elections canceled in Georgia.
What does COVID-19 mean for how campaigns will be operating going forward?
Debates with no attendees.
Most Americans are so familiar with seeing a debate and hearing an audience that the idea of a debate with no audience is going to strike them as strange. This will definitely be true of presidential campaign debates, but even downballot races are trying to figure out how to handle debates and community forums. State house legislators are canceling listening tours and town hall forums as people in their districts do not want to attend.
How do we navigate this issue? We are likely to find that 2020 is the year in which digital and media advertising matters more than ever before.
Door-to-door candidate promotion will be heavily impacted
In-person field organizing, a longtime staple of elections and one of the campaign methods seen as most effective for Democratic candidates, will be impacted as people find another reason to close the door to anyone out promoting a candidate.
Delaware, for example, has already sent out notices, as Delaware Online reports: “The Delaware Democratic Party is asking its candidates to stop canvassing in an attempt to help slow the spread of coronavirus. The party sent a letter to candidates Thursday urging them to ‘suspend canvassing operations in the coming weeks,’ including avoiding gatherings such as meet-and-greets.”
With candidates unable to hold forums and the amount of door-knocking reduced, Democratic candidates face a tougher task in 2020, we will have to find other ways to turn out voters.
Seismic changes are not unthinkable
Think these changes are big? There are probably bigger ones to come. It would require a rules change, but there is always the possibility that the National Republican or Democratic Convention could be altered to provide for remote participation.
For local candidates
If you are running in races for positions such as mayor or state legislator, there will be unprecedented limitations on what constitutes best practices for good campaigning that may make your run more expensive. Instead of, say, finding volunteers to walk around distributing materials, you might find yourself spending resources on unplanned direct marketing.
Next week: building a Democratic platform