Recently our friends at Storefront Political published a great guide for first-time candidates, with 101 tips to help their campaigns win. We picked out our favorite five for candidates who are just getting started, before officially launching their campaigns…
#6 – Give your campaign enough time to succeed.
The story you might have heard about the person who decided to run at the last minute and overcame the “powers that be” is a nice story, but it almost never works out that way. It is a whole lot better to have six months to get your message out than 90 days. It is even better to have a whole year. In other words, within reason, earlier is almost always better. Give yourself time to win by launching your campaign as early as possible, particularly if you are a first-time candidate.
#17 – Use your [fundraising and electoral] research to make the tough decisions.
This is where the rubber meets the road for most campaigns. Be very honest with yourself. If you don’t think you can raise close to the average in campaign donations and also find the time to personally reach out to voters, it’s not time to run yet. It’s important to be realistic. If you decide that you can’t make it work this cycle, don’t worry. Run next cycle and start working up to success right now. And if you decide you can—that’s great!
#22 – Do the hard—but vitally important—work of understanding compliance.
Read the laws with your treasurer. Understand them. If you don’t understand them, ask your local elections officials to explain them to you. Did we say this is important? It is really important.
“Compliance” usually means not taking contributions in excess of the legal limit and not using campaign funds for personal expenses. It always means having the proper “disclaimers” on your campaign materials showing who paid for them (your campaign). It usually means not coordinating with outside groups. And as far as we know, every candidate in America must regularly file disclosure papers with their local elections officials saying how much they raised and spent. This is NOT a complete list. Get the list from your local elections official and memorize it (please) and put all the key dates down. You will thank us later.
#32 – Do some political mapping
Who are the people and organizations that matter in your race? Unions, local elected officials at all levels, party leaders, community leaders, church leaders, business leaders and others. This might be a little daunting for a first-time candidate. But do some research. Who did other candidates list as their endorsers in the past? That’s a great way to start—go through the websites of local candidates and look at who like-minded candidates list as their endorsers. That should be a pretty good initial guide.
#39 – Having trouble asking people for money?
Okay, simple: don’t run unless you are rich. But even then it might be a problem. Self-funders frequently don’t do very well. Why? Because when you ask people to give to your cause, you are creating a list of supporters who are invested personally in your success. These donors help recruit other donors, they spread the word about you on social media, they invite you to community events they know about and introduce you to friends and colleagues.
It’s also important to keep in mind the people you’re asking for money aren’t just giving to you as an individual, they are giving to the platform and policies that you are advocating for. A lot of people want their kids to have smaller class sizes, but not a lot of people have the courage to do what you’re doing by running for office. You have shared values, and for those values to succeed, it takes teamwork. Some people run, some people donate—now, go ask them for it.
Click here to read their full how-to guide for first-time candidates.
"I know firsthand the high-quality work HSG Campaigns has done in Los Angeles and across California. Eric Hogensen and his team have a talent for creative communications, strategic targeting, and innovative campaign practices. A Democrat running for office in California should definitely consider them for their campaign."
— Eric Bauman, Chair, California Democratic Party
As you (or your client) prepare to launch your 2018 race, it's important to separate the facts from the fictions of political campaigns. That's why we've prepared a list of the top 5 myths and misconceptions we see candidates holding on to as they enter the election.
1. There is a silver bullet for winning this race, I just need to figure out what it is.
The number of candidates who win by hoping for a silver bullet to materialize is essentially zero. To win, you need to be a good candidate, you need to have a good team, and you need the political environment – including the voters in your district and the time of your election – to be right for you. It takes a lot of time and hard work. Being a candidate for public office is hard. There is never a way to get around that.
2. The money will come to me.
There are a lot of well-funded campaigns on TV shows and in movies, and it leads us to believe that it happens quite naturally. Few TV shows or movies capture the hours and hours candidates spend dialing for dollars every day, yet it's how they raise money in the real world. Knowing people with money who like you gives you a big advantage, but even then, you still need to ask them for it. This is one of the few campaign tasks that can't be delegated. Only the candidate will be a successful fundraiser.
3. Having the most money ensures victory.
This is the flip-side of the money part of the campaign. Do you need money to win your race? Yes. Will raising the most money win the race? Not necessarily. Elections are complex. Money is important, but not as important as what you do with it. How will you spend it to communicate with voters? What exactly will you communicate? Donald Trump didn't raise nearly as much as his primary opponents. Instead he figured out how to be the most visible among them without paying for visibility. If you can't raise as much as your opponent you can still win, you just need to figure out how to do more with less.
4. We can win by giving non-voters a reason to vote.
This pipe dream is often found in states and districts where our party does so poorly that the locals are desperate enough to believe a pipe dream. Here's the truth: some non-voters have a deep distrust of all politicians, including you; some non-voters don't believe that voting is their duty; some non-voters are so apolitical they don't trust themselves to make the right decision. But for most non-voters, it's all of these things and more. It is almost always a better use of your time, energy, and campaign finances to focus on persuading likely voters and getting your supporters to the polls. If you're in a pipe dream district, hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
5. Voters will choose the candidate with the best ideas.
Like having the most money raised in a campaign, having the best ideas doesn't hurt, but like everything else, it's not a silver bullet. Voters make their decisions based on a number of factors, but in most general elections, most voters decide based on their ideology alone. And there is a vast and ever-increasing body of social psychology research that shows how difficult it is for good ideas to undo the preconceived notions held by people with strong ideologies. Great ideas work best in primaries and among persuadable voters with low-ideology scores. In other circumstances you will want to focus on your opponent's negatives or getting your base to the polls.