Campaigns and Elections

In local non-partisan elections, ideology matters—and so does having a vision that spans beyond anti-Trumpism. Because nonpartisan officials control budgets and make a real impact in our local communities, it is worth your time as a candidate in one of these races to cultivate a clear and appealing platform in your campaign.

Whether you want them or not, those election predictions are back. Every election cycle, we are asked to get off the pollercoaster and predict the future of politics. When it comes to presidential election forecasting, working in politics can make us poor judges of the outcome of an election: after all, we are determined to help our candidates win, which 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 winning. Check out our podcast on presidential election predictions. 

Seth Masket is a political scientist, professor, and author. Seth has written multiple books, including No Middle Ground, which explores how the United States has shifted toward candidates that represent ideological extremes, The Inevitable Party, which examines different attempts to change the current party system and why they failed, and Learning From Loss, a book that walks readers through the Democratic party’s response to the 2016 election up to 2020. Currently, he is writing another book, The Elephant in the Room, which he expects to publish in 2025. Seth is a Professor at the University of Denver, where he also serves as the Director of the Center on American Politics. This week, we asked Seth questions about his life and career path.

As you plan for midterm elections, especially if you’re progressive democrat, you may not want to leave your house. With all the things going on in the country it may seem like the midterm elections are a forgone conclusion and not in a good way. Historical trends come to a similar conclusion.

Chuck Rocha has been doing ground-breaking work from the start. At 29, he was the first person of color named National Political Director of the United Steelworkers of America (USW). In 2010, Rocha left USW and founded Solidarity Strategies, a Latino-owned and operated political consulting firm. In 2016 and 2020, he worked for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, acting as a senior advisor for the 2020 campaign.

GOTV! We are officially in the last 30 days of the 2018 election cycle. It's time to knuckle up and carry your campaign over the finish line. I wrote earlier about the best songs for a mental break, but now is the time to power through! Time is rapidly passing and it is now or never to increase voter turnout. This list will channel whatever ounce of energy you have left by providing a soundtrack as we get over this last hump. Here are 5 songs to get you through GOTV.

Social pressure, Does it work? We care deeply about social norms. Our desire to be liked and accepted by our peers shapes our behavior more than we’d like to admit. We lie about our bad behaviors and exaggerate our better tendencies to fit in. What’s more, we do things when we think other people are watching that we’d otherwise never bother with. That’s why social pressure is such an effective tactic for campaigns and organizations when it comes to getting folks to turn out and vote. Check out our tips for incorporating social pressure into your GOTV mail program this fall.
 

BallotReady is an online voter guide for local, state and national races. This week, we interviewed Alex Niemczewski to discuss how BallotReady can be used to amp up your GOTV campaign strategy.

The midterm elections on Tuesday made for a rough night for Democrats. As many of us emerge from the fetal position under our desk, I decided to write down my observations of the midterm elections of 2014, and what could be done differently in future elections. You can listen to some of my observations here as well.