Why in the world would a campaign consultant ask the seemingly heretical question, “Do political campaigns really matter?”
The answer: partially purposefully provocative combined with another part intellectual curiosity, but as we prepare to spend billions of dollars to elect our next President, we should explore the question.
The Interesting & Peculiar Case of Alachua County
As a political operative in a Democratic dominated area, I’ve run multiple campaigns in this Democratic stronghold of a county. I have the scar tissue to prove it.
Active Registered Voters as of:05/01/15
Democrats:74,076
Republicans:45,165
Others:39,406
Total:158,647
Knowing the odds, I’ve often wondered what would happen if one Republican candidate ran a campaign and one Republican didn’t. Would it matter? Interestingly, Alachua County was presented with that scenario in 2014.
Peculiar Case of the Alachua 2014 Tax Collector Campaign
In 2014, Alachua County experienced the most gentle and amiable campaign maybe ever witnessed by mankind.
In this year, Alachua County held a partisan, open election for Tax Collector. Both candidates seemingly made a gentleman’s agreement not to say anything other than complimentary things about one another. For campaign operatives used to mixing it up, this campaign was an anathema.
Summary of campaign : He qualified by petition. He put up some signs, printed small runs of campaign literature, and repaid close to $6,500 in candidate loans.
Summary of campaign: He printed some palm cards, put out some signs, sent 2 mail pieces, paid qualifying fee and repaid $6,000 in candidate loans.
Tax Collector Campaign Summary
Name
Party
Tot. Exp
Total Vote
% Vote
Jon Costabile
REP
$11,770.00
30,864
41.15%
John Power
DEM
$32,466.00
44,145
58.85%
It is truly difficult to describe just how much of a non-event, non-campaign this was. Both candidates were genuine friends, and the entire campaign consisted of “I would like the job, but if my opponent is elected, it’s cool.” The campaign had little to no media coverage, little to no actual campaigning.
In summary, the Republican spent a little over $5,000 in a county-wide, partisan race.
While boring and bewildering, this campaign provides a unique case study getting to the question of “In Alachua County, if a Republican candidate does little more than put their name on the ballot, what % of the vote would they obtain?”
In a sense, this 2014 tax collector campaign provides the baseline for Republican candidates in Alachua County.
Campaign Comparison
At the exact same time in 2014, Alachua County had a hotly contested County Commission race between Republican John Martin and Democrat Ken Cornell. These two guys were the antithesis of the tax collector race. They did comparing and contrasting media and for all intents and purposes both candidates ran robust campaigns.
Summary of campaign: Contested primary campaign, mail, television, polling, campaign staff, radio
Because of the primary, we break out contributions and expenditures using the primary date as the demarcation line:
Cornell $
Contributions
Expenditures
Primary
$56,605.81
$44,856.08
General
$55,332.50
$56,782.23
County Commission Campaign Summary
Name
Party
Tot. Exp
Total Vote
% Vote
Jon Martin
REP
$65,945.00
32,769
43.35%
Ken Cornell
DEM
$101.535.11
42,816
56.65%
So we are now able to compare and contrast the two types of campaigns during the same election cycle: no campaign versus a more robust campaign.
In a macro view and with a 6x difference in expenditure amount between the Republican candidates, what change in results do we observe between the non-campaign and the robust campaign? +2.2%.
Historical Comparison
Just to remove the doubt that there was something specific about these two campaigns, I also looked at ALL partisan, county wide races in Alachua County since 2002.
Total Races
46
Rep Wins
4
Dem Wins
42
Noting the differences between Presidential and Gubernatorial election years, we find:
Average Win %
Average Dem Pres Yr
63.34%
Average Dem Non-Pres Year
58.76%
So we can observe these two campaigns are at the averages of all campaigns since 2002.
Conclusions / Questions
So have we definitively proved that campaigns don’t matter? No, I don’t think so. We can conclude that running Republican candidates county wide in Alachua County is extremely difficult regardless of the campaign.
To unpack the effects of campaigns, it is helpful to think about when exactly campaigns matter. Two factors are paramount: the number of undecided voters and the balance of resources among the competing candidates.” – John Sides and Jake Haselswerdt, George Washington University
A summary of the findings? Campaigns do matter, when all things are equal, and campaigns matter at the margins.
Most importantly, we can take this knowledge and ask some additional questions:
Noting the recent success of Republicans / Conservatives in the City of Gainesville elections, how can we reconcile that success with elections in Alachua County?
If we can explore that question, then we will have the recipe to break inertia in Alachua County? (and I have my next blog post)
Next week : The Recipe for Success to Break Inertia in Alachua County for Republicans
First time candidates make mistakes, and it is because we expect them that we can take steps to minimize them.
Over the past 20 plus years, I have observed first candidates making mistakes early in the process and during a campaign.
This quick guide is an attempt to help first time political candidates avoid the most common campaigning mistakes, and it may act as a refresher for more experienced candidates.
PRE-CAMPAIGN LAUNCH MISTAKES
Not Doing Correct Research Before Declaring / Deciding to Run before Evaluating the Terrain
This maybe the single biggest mistake a candidate can make. I rue the phone calls that begin with “I’ve filed my paper work and I am running. I’d like to discuss it with you.” Too Late.
It is better to call with “I’m considering running for office, and I would like to discuss the decision making process with you.”
In politics timing is everything, and sometimes this just isn’t the time to be successful.
Mistaking your Friends for Voters
Your friends lie – not in a mean spirited way, but in a non-malevolent way that is crushing. Your friends like you and most likely think you would be a wonderful public servant. Your friends also most likely look like you, live near you, and share political opinions similar to yours.
But most importantly, your friends are NOT likely to say something to you that will test or risk your friendship.
Thinking Beating an Incumbent will be easy
Yes, you and your friends think the incumbent has done an awful job. (But we’ve already talked about your friends.)
Incumbents enjoy significant advantages over challengers and are extremely difficult to up-end. The base rate of success in the Congress? Less than 10%.
Not polling
Running for office without polling is like driving a car blindfolded.
One wouldn’t be as stupid to drive blindfolded, why would one ever consider running without objective research?
Research is the way to test your friends’ and the campaign’s critical assumptions.
Cost too much? Nope. Not in with advancement in technology.
Want to know what really costs too much? Running a losing campaign because the message was off or campaign strategy was based on erroneous assumptions.
Saying “They’ll Never Find It” when it comes to past events.
It will always be found!
In fact, sometimes your former spouse, former business partner, or just someone who doesn’t like you will gift-wrap and hand-deliver it.
Your supporters can forgive most things, but cannot and will not forgive being surprised.
CAMPAIGN MONEY MISTAKES
Underestimating the Time Needed for Fundraising
Underestimating the difficulty in raising money may be the second biggest mistake.
Raising money for political campaigns is hard. It takes as twice as much effort and time as a candidate thinks it will – especially first time candidates.
Your good friend who said you would make a great public servant will suddenly stop returning your calls. Others will terribly disappoint you.
Rule of thumb for first time candidates: I take whatever figure a first-time candidate tells me they can raise, and I cut it in half and then cut it half again. The result is the actual working budget until proven incorrectly.
Messing up the Money
Don’t ever, ever mess up the money. Make sure the campaign keeps impeccable records and hits all filing deadlines.
Pro-tip – photocopy each and every check before depositing.
Second pro-tip – no cash even if the law allows it.
Candidate fills days with campaign work because she is avoiding FR
A candidate can find an infinite amount of things to work on, but normally a candidate starts doing these things because they are avoiding fundraising.
If you are a candidate, sadly your first priority is the role of head fundraiser in charge. You must provide the fuel for the campaign to run well.
If you find yourself digging holes for signs, writing television/radio commercials or attending government meetings you are most likely avoiding fundraising.
Yes, fundraising is hard and grunt-like, but all candidates volunteer for it.
DURING CAMPAIGN MISTAKES
Being Cheap About Photos
Good photos are essential to your campaign.
Most people are visual. They learn visually, they are persuaded visually.
Just because your cousin has a smartphone camera doesn’t mean you get good photos.
It is always desirable to seek advice and counsel from multiple people, but when push comes to shove weight the expert opinion more than cousin Eddy’s novice opinion.
Getting Bored with the Message
Once your campaign researches and develops the message, repeat it until people scream – then repeat it more.
One of the biggest challenges for first-time candidates is they get bored with the message thinking everyone has heard it before. The reality? Most people don’t tune into the campaign until the final week / days.
The trouble begins when the candidate decides to talk about something new. All consultants can recall picking up a newspaper story about the campaign (maybe the only time the hometown paper profiles a candidacy) to read pontifications from a candidate never discussed or researched that does NOTHING to advance the campaign’s message.
Don’t do it. Repeat the message, repeat it until you get complaints, then repeat it more.
Mistaking Politics for Popularity
If a political candidate is attempting to be everything to every voter, the candidate is going to have a bad time.
In a political campaign, a winner needs just one more voter than 50%. As a political candidate, you will NEVER have all voters love you, so stop trying.
Acting like it all about the candidate – It’s not.
Campaigns are about the voters, not you.
Resumes rarely win campaigns.
A candidate needs to suspend somewhat of what brought you to the dance – the ego. Candidates need to position smack dab in the middle of what the voters want.
Winning the Argument is NOT the same as winning the Election
Yes, you can be right, but please not to the detriment of the campaign. If you are trying to win every single argument, every single time, reconsider.
Conclusion
While this list is not comprehensive of every campaign mistake first-time candidates can make, this guide does represent some of the most common mistakes made.
If you take away nothing else, please remember – do research before filing paperwork and don’t underestimate the amount of time needed in the fundraising department.
I am not an alarmist, nor would I be considered a chicken little. In fact, I tend to think systems self-regulate and maintain an equilibrium.
However, for the first time, I am starting to ponder is America’s current two party system heading towards collapse?
Complexity
Over the weekend, I made the mistake of peering down the rabbit hole of the study of complexity and complex systems.
My over-simplified definition of a complex system? A complex systems is comprised of many, diverse actors who have interdependent relationships providing feedback that operate in an adapting, ever changing landscape.
This field is study’s grandfather could be considered Thomas Schelling. His nobel prize winning economic work is summarized in Micromotives and Macrobehavior. You are familiar with his work if you have read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point.
A basic point is micro level behavior and preferences can and often will differ from macro level results. These macro level results “emerge” from the microlevel actors, meaning no central actor is conducting.
I think we all can agree, the american political system could be described as a complex system.
The Collapse of Complex Systems
When we look at complex systems, they are remarkably tolerant systems, because as we defined them, they adapt….to a point.
However, our current political system is suffering fundamentally in two requirements for a healthy complex system:
Diversity
Feedback
Diversity in a Complex System
One of the requirements of a complex system is diversity. Not diversity of just the commonly discussed race and gender, but diversity of thought.
Diversity is a sign of the robustness of a system and its ability to adapt.
Making the concept simple: the more robust (diverse) a system, the more likely of optimizing a outcome.
When a system is reduced to homogeneous actors, the system loses robustness and heads towards catastrophic failure.
An example is a lake.
A lake is a large, complex, diverse and robust system. You put nitrogen run-off into a lake, a lake can adjust and adapt. No big deal.
You continue to add more nitrogen, a lake will continue to adjust, but its diversity is being reduced. It is still a healthy lake, but the complex system is undergoing stress.
You continue to add nitrogen to a lake, and at some critical point there is little to no diversity and BAM! you hit a tipping point and we are left with a slimy mess, a eutrophic lake.
Feedback in Complex Systems
Complex systems have cascading effects leading to tipping points. One of those cascading causing effects is when feedback loops tip too far to positive only or negative only.
With the lack of diversity in both parties and the curating of news, we observe epistemic closure skyrocketing in our political system.
Epistemic closure is not new, it was first talked about in the 1960s. More recently David Frum, former Bush speechwriter, was warning us about closed feedback loops in 2010 in his NYT piece, Post-Tea-Party Nation.
We observe feedback loops becoming less diverse, reinforced with epistemic closure, further affecting the feedback loop. It is a death spiral.
Observation of Current System
We would be hard-pressed to find a single thinking American that is satisfied with the current state of America’s political system.
The political system is less diverse thanks to gerrymandered districts and ideological purges. The feedback loops are closing (if not closed for some) thanks to epistemic closure.
Both factors are accelerating to magnitudes we have not observed due to catalysts such as technology (Internet) and money (super PACS).
Another observation of change in complex systems and its modeling is the speed at which massive change happens.
Let’s return to the lake example. A little disfunction is tolerated, but once cascades happen the change is inexorable, and change happens with a violent suddenness. Recent examples? the fall of the USSR and the US financial meltdown.
The USSR and the world financial markets were both systems similar to the lake. You could observe the signs of stress, but no one predicted the rate or size of change.
The current system of 2 party dominance is under tremendous stress.
Congress’ approval rating is near an all-time low of 15%.
BOTH parties favorabilities are at historic lows.
Citizens have lost faith in government’s ability to do its basic job.
When I look at our country’s current two party system, I see signs of collapse and cascades.
There are questions remaining:
Can we interject enough diversity back into the complex system to increase the likelihood of the system adapting? I see little to no evidence of that.
Have we already passed the tipping point towards collapse?
If we have not reached a tipping point towards collapse, will the system adapt and experience a realignment like we have seen in the past? V. O. Key, Jr. wrote about such realignments – Whigs, FDR, Nixon, Reagan, etc.
If we have reached a tipping point, what would a collapse of the current political system look like? A third party and the death of one or both of the established parties? A radical redesign of the governmental system towards a multi-party governance?
I have always tended to believe that our 200 year old system of government is extremely robust and will adapt. I have previously thought we could and should expect a realignment.
However, with the acceleration of purges and closed feedback loops, I fear the system is now barreling towards collapse.
What I am becoming is more convinced daily that our complex system of governance will undergo a massive change in a relatively short period of time.
This massive change will take the form of a major realignment of the two major political parties or a collapse of our governing system. I hope it is the first.
As with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Duke leading up to World War 1, in complex systems, a small spark can cause a massive, cascading change.
There is a difference between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. There is also a difference between the following two questions:
What are my chances of challenging an incumbent? and
If I decide to challenge an incumbent, what do I need to do to be successful?
Today, we explore second question.
If I decide to challenge an incumbent, what do I need to do to be successful?
People are upset and anxious and with these feelings comes the desire to throw out every incumbent, but that seldom happens. Why?
We are not going to explore the substantial advantages incumbents enjoy. We are going to set them aside and attempt to answer the question, “what does a challenger need to do to be successful?”
Often in politics, we borrow from other disciplines and blend them together. In attempting to answer this question, I am going to borrow heavily from business to build out a new theory on challenging an incumbent.
The specific theory I am going to use is the New Lanchester Strategy. The strategy has its roots in Britain and then used by Japan business as a closely guarded trade secret. The New Lanchester Strategy is considered one of the best tools available for determining market type choices for both start-ups and existing businesses and is used to formulate marketing plans with strategies to attack market share.
The theory has military, business and political implications.
The New Lanchester Strategy asks “How do you win customers for a new, improved offer? You must understand how customers decide, and you must target at their decision process. It means that the offered products or services must become irresistible for the target market.”
I came across the New Lanchester Strategy when reading The Four Steps to the Epiphany, by Steven Gary Blank. Mr. Blank is a founder of the lean start-up movement and the book is considered a classic book in the start-up world.
Mr. Blank removes the math and states:
If a single company has 74% of the market, the market has become an effective monopoly. For a startup, that’s an unassailable position for a head-on assault
If the combined market share for the market leader and second-ranking company is greater than 74% and the first company is within 1.7 times the share of the second, it means the market is held by a duopoly. This is also an unassailable position for a startup to attack.
If a company has 41% market share and at least 1.7 times the market share of the next largest company, it is considered the market leader. For a startup, this too is a very difficult market to enter. Markets with a clear market leader are, for a startup an opportunity for re-segmentation.
If the biggest player in a market has at least a 26% market share, the market is unstable, with a strong possibility of abrupt shifts in the company rankings. Here there may be some entry opportunities for startups or new products from existing players.
If the biggest player has less than 26% market share, it has no real impact in influencing the market. Startups who want to enter an existing market find these the easiest to penetrate.
Blank adds two more important rules in the strategy that are particularly relevant:
If you decide to attack a market that has just one dominant player, you need to be prepared to spend three times (3x) the combined sales and marketing budget of that dominant player.
In a market that has multiple participants, the cost of entry is lower, but you still need to spend 1.7 times (1.7x) the combined sales and marketing budget of the company you plan to attack.
Political Implications of the New Lanchester Strategy
If we consider an incumbent politician as having established market-share, and if we switch market-share for favorability polling numbers or even elections results, we can start to apply the New Lanchester Strategy to politics and develop a substitute hypothesis.
I think the best substitute is favorability ratings because it should be more current than past election results.
I am going to over-simplify for a starting point.
If an incumbent has a favorability rating over over 74%, it is an unassailable position for a head on-assault; possible with a strategy of re-segmentation.
If an incumbent has favorability ratings between 41%-74%, it is still an unassailable position for a for a head on assault; possible with a strategy of re-segmentation.
It is not until the favorability rating is less than 41%, do we observe an easier path to entry.
Blanks’s stunning finding using the New Lanchester Strategy: regardless of the specific market-share or favorability ratings, if you are going to challenge an incumbent, you need to spend 1.7 x – 3 x the communication budget of the incumbent to take market-share.
Conclusion
As a company that has run many challenges to incumbents, some successful, most not; it is difficult to explain to excited candidates the difficulties facing challengers – not even specific to your candidacy – but rather any challenger.
When challenging an incumbent, almost every card in the deck is stacked against the challenger.
Now, consider a political neophyte with no market-share.
Candidates often cite such events like Rep David Blat’s defeat of an Eric Cantor as proof of concept, but interestingly they never consider the true Black Swan nature of such a defeat.
Combine that fallacy with prospective incumbent challengers basing their campaign budgets on what either the incumbent or a previous unsuccessful challenger spent, and we have a recipe for defeat.
We are now going to take this new theory and back test it against races to where incumbents or politicians with high market-share (in open races) were defeated by successful challengers. Any bets whether this new theory holds true?
I’ve received several inquiries on whether or not a “push poll” was run in our local area this week. While I have not polled in the area in question, the question does provide a teachable moment about push polls.
Here are characteristics that will usually indicate to a respondent that the call is not a legitimate survey.
One or only a few questions are asked, all about a single candidate or a single issue.
The questions are uniformly strongly negative (or sometimes uniformly positive) descriptions of the candidate or issue.
The organization conducting the calls is not named, or a phony name is used.
Evasive answers are given in response to requests for more information about the survey.
In addition, the following characteristics will indicate to journalists, reporters, and survey professionals that a telephone call is not a legitimate survey.
The number of people called is very large, sometimes many thousands.
The calls are not based on a random sample.
It is difficult to find out which organization conducted the interviews.
What is NOT a Push Poll?
A random sample poll testing negative statements is NOT a push poll.
Again, we look the AAPOR:
One way to tell is that message-testing surveys exhibit the characteristics of a legitimate survey, such as:
At the beginning of the call, the interviewer clearly identifies the call center actually making the calls. (However, legitimate political polling firms will often choose not to identify the client who is sponsoring the research, be it a candidate or a political party, since that could bias the survey results.)
The interview contains more than a few questions.
The questions usually ask about more than one candidate or mention both sides of an issue.
Questions, usually near the end of the interview, ask respondents to report demographic characteristics such as age, education level, and party identification.
The survey is based on a random sample of voters.
The number of respondents falls within the range of legitimate surveys, typically between 400 and 1500 interviews.
Conclusion about what is and is not a push poll
The Marketing Research Association (MRA), the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC), the American Association of Public Opinion Research and the entire survey and opinion research profession, oppose the practice of “push polling”.
However, and here is the gist: Just because a pollster tests what you may perceive as a negative statement DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY mean it is a push poll.
As a pollster there are legitimate reasons to test negative messages. As an example, sometimes we test negative messages to convince candidates or interest groups NOT to use the message.
The bottom line is: Please, before you accuse someone of unethical behavior or potentially a crime (in some states), you should know about the accusation you are leveling.
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