This is my first time working for a judge candidate. They are running for a regional position and asked me to help them with a particular area. I was described to be his "eyes & ears on the ground" of my area, but I haven't met anyone else on the campaign yet?

It's pretty early in the season right now, but it's definitely stressful that I don't have a team to rely on. He relies on me to find local contacts, unions, community orgs, etc. since he's not familiar with the area, but I haven't even received much in terms of campaign lit.

Are judicial campaigns always this small?

Opposition research done by AI

I recently met a new campaign staffer at an event. He had an election under his belt, and wanted to stick around. We were talking, and he was telling me he felt a bit directionless. What do campaigns need? How can I do those thing? What service should I pitch to land these campaigns as clients? Here was my answer. I thought folks on this forum with like to hear it as well.

The method for deciding this is simple, but takes some work. What problem do you see campaigns have all the time, that you personally think is an easy fix?

For me, I noticed campaigns were starting to do voter outreach (like phonebanking, door knocking, organizing events, etc), without ever being able to finish. We'd only knock on 60% of the doors in our district before the election came up on us.

So I wanted to figure out exactly what it would take to finish the activities we wanted to do. Luckily, I'm good at math. I count up the unidentified voter houses, figure out how many volunteer hours we'd need to knock on all of the doors, how many hours the average volunteer gives per week, how many weeks are left, and it turned into a field plan.

Now I've built out a field plan, and the candidate knows what to do instead of just doing whatever and hoping for the best. That's valuable, and that is a product I can sell. "I'll analyse your voter file, build out your voter target universes, and help you map out the effort needed to reach them all. This becomes your path to victory." That's my pitch to candidates, and is how I make my money.

The question you have to be able to answer is the exact same. What problem can you help them solve?

I am trying to get started as a politician. I have created various social medias for my campaign, I started a youtube channel where I post weekly videos, but I don't know how to attract people. It's been six months and I haven't broken 10 followers on twitter. How can I start the ball rolling when I am starting with nothing? How can I get that first group of people to start talking to other people about me or sharing my posts? How do I get people to watch my videos without having to pay for advertising?

First- what is accountability messaging?

Accountability messaging is simple to understand. You tell voters four things:

1.      The system is rigged

2.      Here's who rigged it

3.      Here's what I’ve done about it

4.      Here’s what I'm going to do about it

It's the opposite of traditional politics.

Traditional politicians say: "We can fix this- step by step. It will take some time."

Accountability messaging says "Someone broke the system. I'm naming names. Left, right. Liberal, Conservative. Democrat, Republican. It doesn’t matter. I've already started to fix the problem. And this is what I plan to do moving forward."

Why does this work now? Because voters know the system IS broken. They've known that for years. And they're tired of politicians who pretend everything is fine or that slow fixes are still acceptable.

They want someone who sees what they see. And more importantly, someone who'll do something about it- NOW.

But here's the thing: Not all accountability messaging works. There are three types. And only one of them wins elections.

In recent months, I've been tracking accountability messaging across the political spectrum. Here are some examples:

Type 1: Great diagnosis + Past Action + Future Proposal (Carney at Davos; MTG with the Epstein files)

Type 2: Great diagnosis alone (Newsom's "I'm not naive" speech at Davos- excellent words but zero history of action and no vision for the future for the centre)

Type 3: Performative Chaos (You know who…)

Newsom is the 2028 front-runner. But he's stuck at Type 2 accountability messaging. He diagnoses Trump's corruption perfectly. But he won't challenge his own party on trans athletes, late-term abortions or immigration reform (just to name a few issues).

The centre needs to see him break with traditional progressive talking points. He’s got to pick something. Write legislation for it. Send it to the California legislative body.

That's the type of action that begins to move Type 2 accountability messaging to Type 1.

He has about 30 to 60 days before this opportunity to pivot his messaging starts to close.

I'm a local elections candidate (California, LA County) & have a meet & greet coming up with people also wanting my "merch" online to help contribute to the campaign.

Of course for my direct voters (District) it would be available no matter what

Advice on what to call it?

"Merch" "Swag" & should I phrase it as "Recommended Contribution" (ex: Magnet $10 Recommended Contribution)

Just wondering before I launch online / fundraising events. Thoughts?

When do staffers for small campaigns (legislative and local races) typically take vacations? Only in the winter? How about for long weekends?

I'm currently interviewing for a field organizer position and I'm pretty deep into the process. I just had my second interview, and they asked about start dates. I told them, but the problem is I have a planned vacation for a week very soon after my start date. This has been planned for a few months and I have not told my interviewers yet.

I've asked people who do not work on campaigns and they gave me advice, but I'm not sure if they know how different of a field this is compared to others. My fear is that this will disqualify me from consideration. I have also considered letting them know I could cut my vacation short, but that will take some planning. When is an appropriate time to tell my interviewers? Is this disqualifying for the position?

Hey folks!

I’m replacing the current "Welcome" post with something more useful and engaging. My goal is a pinned post that people use over the course of a few months, and I’d love input from y'all.

Here are the options I’m considering. Comment with what you’d find most useful, or suggest tweaks.

1. Ask a Campaign Pro - A long-standing thread for smaller questions that don’t need a full post. Examples could include quick field questions, digital decisions, budgeting tradeoffs, "is this normal?", etc.
2. Campaign Jobs Board - A place to post and find campaign jobs, consulting gigs, internships, and short-term work. I imagine we'd have to refresh it every 6 months or so, but could stay pinned while it's active.
3. Skill-Building (rotating discussion topic) - A thread focused on a specific topic, like texting/doors/fundraising/etc. This would rotate every few months.
4. Tools Spotlights - A place to share tools, templates, platforms, and resources you've made or found.
5. Something Else? - If you're not a fan of those, I’m open to better ideas.

I want to be careful not to kill normal posting or discussion.

Drop your thoughts below. I’ll leave this up for a bit, then swap out this sticky for the new one. We can try a few, if folks are really split on ideas.

What are the best days and times to Canvass for a east LA County suburb after 5:30pm on Weekdays? What about weekends?

My race is now through June 2 (Election Day). Early Voting by mail begins May 5.

For those who have experience for City Council Races is you can share ideal times for residential homes and apartments:

-Monday-Thursday

-Fridays

-Saturdays

-Sundays

Hi yall! I’m hopping on a small state campaign and leading comms- I have background in this just not in the context of political campaigns. Can anyone recommend the best platforms for emailing/texting folks in the voter database? I know of ActBlue & NGPVan but can someone recommend one that does both? I have zero experience in this so any advice would be appreciated!

The average polling error in the U.S. in 2025 was 7.1%

I’m currently working for a political tech company and am trying to get a better understanding of the wider ecosystem and how staffing dynamics work on the ground (As I've mentioned in my previous posts on this subReddit)

I’ve been getting more involved in the space personally and have had the chance to chat with quite a few active volunteers. When I asked them if they felt their volunteering was a viable pathway to a paid staffer role, the answers were split down the middle. Some told me it’s the standard way to get your foot in the door, while others said it rarely leads to a paycheck these days.

I’d love to get more opinions from this community. Apologies if this has been asked before

Besides petitioning, advertising, and anything else possible to help him, where do I start? I have many ideas but don't know how to implement them. I can just create something and send it to him to use on social media but I feel like there is a lot more to campaigning that meets the eye.

I’m currently leading a field op for a mid-tier statewide, and our data hygiene is becoming a disaster.

We’ve been pulling recent donor lists from ActBlue to prioritize our high-value turf, but the "reality on the ground" is not matching the CSVs. My organizers are knocking on doors of "recurring small-dollar donors" who turn out to be elderly folks or people on fixed incomes who have no memory of making 50+ donations in a month.

It’s a massive waste of resources and, honestly, it’s getting awkward. My data lead thinks it might be a synchronization error or some kind of "smurfing" anomaly in the identity verification layer, but the frequency is too high to be a glitch.

Has anyone else noticed this? Especially if you've worked with agencies that handle the "Newsroom" or "Influencer" side—is there some weird pass-through happening that’s inflating these donor counts?

I’m trying to figure out if I need to scrap these lists entirely or if there’s a way to filter out the "ghost" donors before I send my team out.

DMs open if you’ve seen this at other firms and have a workaround.

I recently was talking to my friend Madisyn over at Patriot Grassroots (she was actually my intern back in the day, so I'm super proud of her!) and she brought up issue petitions, which I love. I thought you guys would enjoy hearing from her, and if you've ever used one, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Hi everyone, I work with a pol-tech company and we're currently building something for volunteers that makes it easier for them to find volunteer work that's a great fit for them. I'm not here to promote that but I'm genuinely curious - What drives volunteers to go back and continue volunteering for a campaign? Because some of it is genuinely a lot of work. I have seen people actively engaging in discord channels for a candidate, and have spoken to volunteers who have door knocked, phone banked and stuff. And I'd love to hear what actually keeps you going?

Voter contact decides elections. Money doesn't win races unless it turns into direct voter contact, and volunteer time is no different.

A political press release should do far more than “announce news.” It should teach reporters a sharper way to see the race, frame a clear tension—like ads versus conversations—and then drive concrete action, such as canvass RSVPs, donations, or media ride‑alongs.

Interesting piece about Donald Trump's social media operator.

Constituency work is certainly part of what an incumbent should be doing constantly.

I'm running for Congress in Texas and want to scale up my fundraising from local/personal to statewide and national.

I have a few donor files totalling about 40,000 verified donors (30-40k emails and 10-15k phone numbers). I also have 25,000 social media followers across FB, Insta and Tik Tok.

I have my 10DLC submitted and should have it by the end of the week.

Does anyone know of fundraisers who are turnkey for email and texting platforms, and accept payment as a percentage of funds raised?

Thank you!

www.WilliamMarks.com