The Campaign Workshop Blog

Election Stress Is Real, What Can You Do About It?

As someone who has been in the world of elections for 30 years, election stress has been a constant in my life and those around me. But this year it is even more  stressful - https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2020/sia-mental-health-crisis.pdf To be clear, I don’t consider myself an expert in election stress, but I have dealt with it for a long time and want to share strategies and…

List Matching: The What, Why, and How of Digital Targeting

Political advertising can be expensive, so it is imperative to make sure that every dollar is well spent. A big chunk of that change will go towards figuring out who you want to serve your ads to and where, whether for conversion or eyeballs. Over the past few years, methods for creating ad universes have evolved to become more precise and granular – enter list matching.   The What: List matching is a way to create targeted universes by combining an existing list with the online…

Hal Malchow: 7 Questions on  42 Million to One 

Hal Malchow is the former Chairman of MSHC partners, which was a political consulting firm that pioneered the use of statistical modeling and control group experiments in politics. His work in changing campaign politics is chronicled in Sasha Issenberg’s 2011 book, The Victory Lab, The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. Over his career, Hal has worked for five Democratic presidential nominees. His first political thriller, No Popes in Heaven, was published in 2018. His new book, 42 Million to…

Get out the vote, better known as GOTV is the final phase of any campaign. The whole point of this phase is in the name: get your voters out to vote. This phase applies to electoral campaigns, voter turnout campaigns, and independent expenditure campaigns. As long as your ultimate goal is to achieve a certain number of votes on Election Day, you are going to want to GOTV—you are going to want to reach out to your voters in the last few weeks of your campaign and make sure they have a voting plan and that they go out and successfully vote. There are…

Vote by Mail - What, Why, Who, When and How A hot topic for this coming election is how many people will vote by mail. With COVID-19 still rampant in the U.S., voting by mail will be a critical part of the November 3rd election. But whether or not you’re eligible to vote by mail depends on where you live, even down to the county level. Read on to find out more information on how to vote by mail.   What does it mean to vote by mail? Voting by mail is pretty self-explanatory. After you receive a ballot in the mail from the governing body of your state/…

How to safely use deep canvassing to persuade voters

Deep canvassing is a growing tactic for voter persuasion that uses longer, two-way conversations.  Campaigns, especially electoral campaigns, are always on the lookout to find the most efficient and effective way to persuade voters to support their cause.  In the past, door to door canvassing and phone campaigns were a staple of field operations to identify and persuade voters to vote for…

Black Lives Matter Movement A Conversation About What It Is and Why We Need It.

Black Lives Matter.  Across the country and around the world, we have seen protests demanding an end to systemic racism and police brutality in our country as well as justice for the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Rayshard Brooks, Elijah McClain and countless others.  The Black Lives Matter movement and others like it are incredibly impactful. Social activists are at the forefront, demanding attention be…

A Guide to Building a Clear and Simple Campaign Logo

Mixing Text with Visuals  The advertising world is well-versed in using and exploiting the visual language of typography to convey messages that go beyond the overt, verbal language on the page. Cal Swan, author of Language and Typography, says, “These two distinct areas often come together in practice as there is clearly a very strong relationship between the conception of the words as a message and their transmission in visible form.” Nowhere is this more important than in political…

Presidential Election Predictions Can Be Made in Pretty Weird Ways

Looking for accurate presidential election predictions? As Election Day approaches, it seems like every news channel will reference the latest polls or how many points ahead Trump or Biden are in the race for the White House. But as scientific and data centric as polls can be, there are a few unconventional ways to make presidential election predictions, and…

GOTV:  Get Out The Vote - Voter Turnout Strategies 

Get Out the Vote (GOTV) or Voter turnout, describes a campaign strategy for candidates or organizations to get eligible voters to head to the polls or return their ballots by Election Day,  GOTV is an essential part of any campaign strategy and can make the difference between winning and losing an election. There are a variety of ways to improve voter turnout, including  canvassing, campaign mail, digital ads, TV, radio buys, phone and text banking. Learn our tips for Get Out The Vote - Know…

Presidential Election Predictions for 2020 

We are often asked to predict the future in politics—especially when it comes to Presidential Election Predictions However, being a political consultant does not mean being the best judge of what will happen on Election Day. We are determined to help our candidates win, and that can make us less objective in predicting electoral odds than we should be. In other words, wanting to win is not always a predictor of actually winning. Check out our podcast on…

Mail-In Ballot Voter Fraud Is Extremely Rare

Mail-in ballot voter fraud is the biggest problem that doesn’t exist. No one should have to choose between making their voice heard in a pivotal presidential election and risking their life by voting in person during a pandemic. That’s why states have taken measures in 2020 to make mail-in voting easier for and accessible to more voters. This fall, states like California are automatically sending ballots in the mail to all registered voters (rather than just those who explicitly request a ballot).…

Answering Your FAQs about Early Voting in 2020

Due to the ongoing pandemic, we’ve seen a lot of talk recently about early voting in 2020. But early and absentee voting can be very, very different depending on where you live. While there are states that continue to limit absentee voting, early voting, or both, the trend across the country in recent years has been to make it easier for voters to cast a ballot. For instance, some states like New York and Michigan opened up access to early and absentee voting for the 2020 election cycle pre-COVID-…

Third-Party Candidates are in Your Race? Here is what to do... 

With a lot of talk about third-party candidates lately, you may be wondering if they can really affect a political race. Well, whether it’s bringing specific issues to the forefront of the race, syphoning off votes from a major party candidate, or even winning the race themselves, third-party candidates can have real impact.  What happens when a third-party candidate runs against you? Republican operatives in a number of states have been working to get Kanye West on the ballot as a…

Local Candidates- Don't Make these  Common Campaign Mistakes 

Campaigns for local candidates are different than those for bigger races. While you will still have to work to raise money, local candidates will depend in large part on the community for the resources and volunteers that they need. Local candidates also tend to go without the aid of consultants or those with expensive experience working on a lot of campaigns. Thus, there are often people running local campaigns where it will be their first experience doing this type of work. With…