How to Juggle Responsibilities as a Political Candidate
The process for finding good political candidates doesn’t involve filling out a job application. When a candidate decides to run for office, they may not realize that the time commitment requires hours of work per day.
Prioritizing tasks as a candidate, campaign manager, or political campaign staff is critical to running any political campaign, and delegation might be the scariest part of running for office for a political candidate. Handing your life over to a team of people and losing a lot of autonomy over your time and schedule is not easy. However, delegation is a necessity for winning. If you, as a candidate, insist on having your hands in every aspect of the political campaign, nothing will ever get done.
Your time and energy are limited, and how you spend them can make or break your campaign. The key is learning to ask the right questions before saying “yes.”
Here’s a simple gut-check list to help you decide what’s actually worth your time on the campaign trail:
1. Does this help raise money for the campaign?
Money isn’t everything, but it funds everything. If this opportunity helps you connect with donors, build fundraising momentum, or expand your supporter base, it’s probably worth doing. If not, ask yourself what other kind of value it offers.
2. Will I meet voters I need to persuade or mobilize to achieve my vote goal?
Be strategic about who’s in the room. Are these folks you still need to win over or turn out, or a crowd already solidly behind you? Your time’s better spent meeting the folks who still need convincing. Your time is also always best spent engaging in direct voter contact.
3. Could someone else on my team handle this instead of me?
Not every task requires you. If a staffer, volunteer, or surrogate can attend, delegate. The more you trust your team, the more you can focus on the high-impact things only the candidate can do, like connecting directly with voters, media, and donors.
4. Does this fit my campaign strategy?
Every campaign needs a roadmap. Before adding something to the schedule, ask: Does this move us toward one of our main goals? If it’s just “nice to do,” it might not be necessary right now. Your time will be limited, so you should always be raising money or using that money for direct voter contact.
5. Am I doing this because it’s expected, or because it’s effective?
Campaign traditions can be powerful, but they can also waste precious hours. Just because “everyone does it” doesn’t mean you have to. Choose effectiveness over optics whenever you can. There will always be tactics that you need to prioritize over others. Don't spread yourself too thin.
6. Does this bring me closer to my ‘why’?
When in doubt, come back to your purpose. You decided to run for a reason, whether it’s an issue, a community, or a story that matters to you. The best campaign activities reconnect you to that purpose and remind you why all the long days are worth it.
Now, not everything will fall perfectly into a yes or no category, but keeping these basic questions in mind when prioritizing tasks will give you a place to start. Every political campaign ends on Election Day, and whichever candidate has the most votes wins. To clinch those votes, you must be focused on raising money to reach more voters to achieve your vote goal.
These prioritization tips are also very important for your campaign manager to know as well, because they will ultimately be the person ensuring that you are, in fact, raising money or garnering more votes. It also helps the campaign manager delegate tasks to other members of your campaign staff.
As a political candidate, you will have a lot of people pulling you in a thousand different directions, but if you can make sure that any task passes muster with the questions above, you will be on the right track.
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