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.
We’ve been following our fictional candidate, Jessica Jones, as her campaign moves through the election cycle in her efforts to win a state Senate seat. With her primary out of the way, and the general upon her, Jessica has to start making plans about how to budget and spend the money that comes into her campaign.
Before we get started, I want to state my primary belief up front: people who donate money to your campaign expect you to spend it in an effort to win. You aren’t building a savings plan, your goal isn’t to have a war chest at the end of the race. How you spend the money that comes into your campaign is a big part in a successful campaign.
Managing a Campaign Budget By Percentages
Campaigns have no guarantee as to how much money they can raise. You can set goals and targets, and monitor them frequently, but there is absolutely no guarantee you can hit specific fundraising targets. No campaign has a crystal ball.
While you can’t know for sure how much you will raise, your budget has to be built around reasonable expectations. By looking at races within her district in the past, as well as any fundraising connections that she has, Jessica Jones can try and make a reasonable projection as to the kind of fundraising she expects. By evaluating her fundraising goals frequently, she can avoid making bad budget decisions.
There is a general rule of campaign finance for state races: if you are spending more than 30 percent of your campaign funds on things that do not involve voter contact, you need to go back and rethink your choices.
Campaigns believe at least 60 percent of all of your incoming funds should be spent on voter outreach. That can mean mail, paid canvas, radio, TV, social media, or any other item which directly connects with a voter.
Top-Heavy Campaigns Discourage Donors
Four years ago, another candidate, Tim Swan, ran in the seat Jessica Jones is seeking. Jessica can look back at his campaign, evaluate good and bad choices, and decide how she should manage her budget.
Swan’s campaign raised money—but more than 50 percent was spent on inner campaign cost. His cost for a manager, office rent, utilities, and other items consumed the lion share of his budget. As a result, his office largely sat empty, the services he paid for were under used, and voters didn’t see a lot of Tim Swan.
Campaigns that are calling for campaign donations in order to keep the lights on eventually struggle with fundraising in general. Voters are more encouraged to donate to campaigns they think are active and doing something to win their race.
Good Deals Are Fair Game
There is a great misunderstanding with many political candidates that you, under campaign finance laws, should just take the first deal offered to you for many services. Like anyone in the marketplace, you have every right to shop for a good deal.
Finding out if your state party or county party has a deal in place to lower cost of mail, printing or other services is a legitimate way to lower costs. If they do not, you are still free to shop through multiple vendors to make sure you are not being over charged by any vendor.
Loyalty to past vendors can sometimes bring benefits, but making sure that you get the rate in the marketplace can prevent you from blowing through a budget.
Don’t Run Empty
By election day, your goal is to have spent every penny in your campaign thoughtfully to reach as many voters as possible. When Jessica and her campaign evaluate her race, they also look for the amount of support outside groups, including her state and county party, will invest in her race.
The fastest way to stop those groups from giving into her campaign? Run out of money 2 months before election day.
While every campaign should work to spend every cent to effectively fight for a race, that doesn’t mean spending everything in August is a good idea. How you spend matters to potential donors and outside partners. No one will sweat if you spend everything in October. Campaign allies will worry and fret if your campaign is sitting at or near $0 in August.
These Expenses are Bad.
Drumroll. When you get into a campaign, there will be certain groups who pitch you items they think you should spend on. Many of these are bad ideas. Some of them are exceptionally bad ideas. I’m going to highlight a few things your campaign should avoid spending money on.
- Furniture. If your campaign is being pitched the idea of buying office furniture, and you aren’t running for US president, then it is most likely a very bad expense. Campaigns for state offices can normally assemble chairs and desks easily and quickly. If you’re spending budget on these items in a race for state House and Senate, then you need to be bringing in enough money to make it a rounding error.
- Expensive Dinners & Parties. Want to have a campaign finance report that turns a lot of donors off? Fill it up with trips to your local steak house. Campaigns which fill their expense books with “The Capital Grille” as an example, stand out as a campaign that is waisting money. Are you running for president? US Senate? A prominent House race? Meals will be a drop in the bucket. If you’re running in a race where significantly less money is going to be raised and spent, you need to stop living off champagne dreams.
- Nepotism. It seems like a good idea to hire your spouse and kids. They’ll work cheap, and besides, you know them, right? Look at all the politicians who’ve done it, right? In a local campaign your budget is less. If you’re spending campaign money hiring your spouse or your children, you are bound to get complaints that you are using the campaign to pad your family income. There are exceptions to this, but in general, in a small race, don’t pay your family a standard income.
- The Big One: Lists. During a campaign you’re going to be offered a lot of opportunities for “magic lists,” lists of names and phone numbers that will provide you a chance to raise money. Numerous outsiders will peddle lists that come with a significant cost. Candidates have paid thousands of dollars to receive a list of names and phone numbers. While paying someone to put together a list for you based on data you have is reasonable, paying significant sums of money for “magic lists” rarely works effectively for a state level race, and for the most part, this is true of federal races as well. Before you pay out money for a list of names, find others who have dealt with those selling “magic lists” and get responses on their results. You are likely to save yourself more money then you raise.
Final Thoughts: Making your campaign effective means raising money and spending money effectively. Every time you spend money in your campaign, ask yourself if it is something you hope will influence a voter. If you are spending the majority of your money on things that don’t influence or connect with voters, you need to step back and re-evaluate.
Next Week: Making Peace. Primary Opponents Are Great Advocates
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.
You can follow prior installments in this series HERE.