Organization

The campaign organization communicates the candidate's message to the voters, highlighting his or her strengths and downplaying his or her weaknesses. 

American presidential campaigns represent the state of the art of modern electoral campaigning.  They are able to attract the best people and put the most recent techniques into play.  Modern political campaigns have many areas of responsibility including political, field, communications, new media, research, outreach/coalitions, data/voter file, scheduling and advance, operations, get out the vote, legal, and finance.  Ultimately the success of a campaign depends on the qualities of the candidate, but a candidate's campaign team can make a difference. 

From the campaign manager or state director and top staff in headquarters to the field organizer toiling away in a ramshackle office in a small town, to the unheralded intern or the volunteer making calls at a phone bank, a campaign depends on people willing to work long hours for modest or even no pay.  Because of the demanding nature of the job, many campaign staffers are in their 20's and 30's, but there are also the "gray hairs" who can call on their experience working on a succession of presidential campaigns.  Any candidate has a trusted inner circle of advisors, some of whom may not even be part of the campaign staff.  Senior advisors make greater or lesser contributions to the campaign.  The candidate's spouse sometimes is quite involved in the campaign.  Campaigns seek endorsements from current and former elected officials, and these individuals, depending on their inclination, can also play an active role in the campaign.

Campaigns also have a stable of consultants and vendors to help with specialized tasks such as polling, fundraising and paid media.  From an historical perspective, campaigns have become increasing professionalized in recent decades, and they are using increasingly sophisticated means to communicate with voters, ranging from micro-targeting to social media.

In 2019-20 Democratic campaigns placed a major emphasis on attracting small donations, and many of them highlighted the fact that they were not accepting money from PACs or federal lobbyists.  Some of the campaigns built large teams, while others, with more limited resources, had tiny staffs and had be "nimble."  A large campaign team can "cover all the bases," but a campaign that is able to stay in the game despite limited resources merits attention.  Staff diversity is a major concern for the 2020 Democratic campaigns.>  In the MeToo era, campaigns are taking measures to address sexual harrassment.  In May the Sanders campaign released "A Blueprint for Safety, Inclusion & Equity in Political Campaign Work (+)."  As part of their efforts to ensure a positive workplace environment and working conditions, a number of campaigns have unionized (Castro, Sanders, Swalwell, Warren, Booker, Buttigieg, Biden, Klobuchar, Steyer).  

Pre-Campaign to Post-Campaign

Even before the campaign starts, a potential candidate usually has a political organization, be it a leadership PAC, a Section 527 organization, a 501(c)(4) or a re-election campaign.  In the pre-campaign period, that is the period prior to the midterm elections, the glimmerings of campaign organizations start to take shape.  As a next step a potential candidate may opt to form an exploratory committee or he or she may directly form a campaign committee. 

The first staffers get to work setting up headquarters, sometimes in a temporary space.  The location of the national headquarters can make a difference.  Recent campaigns suggest there may be an advantage to being situated outside the Beltway; Donald Trump (New York), Barack Obama (Chicago), George W. Bush (Austin) and Bill Clinton (Little Rock) all located outside Washington, DC.  In 1999, when Vice President Al Gore's campaign appeared to be floundering he shut down his DC headquarters and moved all those willing to go to Nashville. 

Fundraising is a key part of the early months, and the campaign strives to bring in the resources that will enable it to compete.  While money is important to building a campaign organization, it cannot in itself guarantee success. 

In 2015 the Clinton campaign launched with a very sizable organization in place and the backing of much of the establishment, discouraging most other potential candidates from entering.  Nonetheless, the Sanders campaign was able to make a race of it by attracting many small donations.  The Warren campaign stood out for its early investment in a large organization in Iowa, comprising about 50 staff by the end of April 2019.  Almost all the campaigns put significantly more resources early on in Iowa than in any other state.

As the campaign progresses, the organization grows, opening field offices in early states and perhaps a few offices in other states.  Growing campaigns develop sizable organizations in the early states, adding waves of field organizers. 

If a campaign lags, the candidate may eventually decide to make some changes and bring on new people to try to revive the effort.  Shakeups in a campaign are usually not a good sign, but can be overcome.  In statewide and congressional campaigns  one will sometimes see a change in leadership after the primary.  On presidential campaigns, Donald Trump won despite his campaign disorganization in 2016, John McCain survived the near implosion of his campaign in 2007, and Newt Gingrich managed the same feat in 2011.  Among the 2020 candidates, Kamala Harris' campaign drew the most media attention for having a problematic management structure; she implemented significant cutbacks in early Nov. 2019 and refocused on Iowa to no avail.

In the weeks before voting in a particular state primary or caucus, the campaign implements a get-out-the-vote plan, and volunteers  come in from around the country to help.  If a candidate achieves success in one of the early states, the result can be an influx of people, money, and interest that challenges the ability of the campaign to make effective use of it.  More staff are brought on.  Surviving or growing campaigns redeploy staff to later states, and may absorb staff from failed campaigns.  

The challenge presented by Super Tuesday, where 14 states held contests on one day, was immense.  Campaigns focused resources on states where they believed they could do well, and devoted few resources to states seen as out of reach.  In some states a campaign may be active for just a few weeks or not at all.  Looking at a particular presidential campaign across the fifty states plus DC and territories, the quality of the organization can be quite uneven.

2020 presented a unique case in the campaign of former NYC Michael Bloomberg.  Bloomberg skipped the four early states and poured virtually unlimited resources into Super Tuesday and later states.  He paid top dollar to bring on top talent and built sizable state organizations, but it did not work.

Once the nomination is secured or in view, the campaign will bring on additional talent as it builds out a national organization.  The campaign will also place its own people in key positions at the national party committees (DNC and RNC) as well as naming people to work with the convention committees.  Some staff will be assigned for the vice presidential nominee, and he or she will also bring some of his or her own people.

In the Fall, out in the states, three entities help bring a presidential candidate's message to the voters: (a) the candidate's campaign organization; (b) the unified effort designed to elect party members at every level from the court house to the White House (known as the coordinated campaign for Democrats and the Victory campaign for Republicans); and (c) the state party.  In the case of an incumbent president, the White House is also closely involved.  Additionally, there are independent but allied groups that reinforce the campaign's messages.  Electoral math and the quest for 270 electoral votes dictate that a presidential campaign should focus its resources on certain states, while other states may be largely bypassed. 

Once the election is over, the process of packing up and winding down the campaign, built up over so many long months, takes place, bringing with it a sense of nostalgia.  Many members of the winning campaign team find places in the inaugural committee or on the transition, while hoping for jobs in the administration.  For members of the losing campaign it is also time to dust off the resumes and try to figure out what to do next. 

Campaign Management

A campaign manager needs to be able to make tough decisions, often working with limited resources in a tight time frame.  Usually the manager does not make the big strategic decisions; although he or she weighs in on them, his or her task is to implement the strategy.  That requires creating an environment where the staff are working towards the goal of electing the candidate, not battling and sniping amongst themselves.  To be effective, a campaign must be organized so as to present a consistent message.  It would not work for one campaign staffer to say one thing and another to say something contradictory.  Thus there is a process to ensure that communications are approved.  As an example, reporters out on the campaign trail may find that campaign staff will not answer basic questions, instead referring them to proper channels.  At the same time, the campaign must be flexible enough to respond to changing circumstances and to present a message that is not so scripted it is devoid of life and interest.  A consistent message is important, but if the message is not working, the campaign must be willing to change it.  Sometimes just a little tweak or refinement will do the job, and other times a major overhaul is required.  Data and analytics have come to assume an increasingly important role in modern campaigns because they allow a campaign to test and refine its messages.

How a candidate runs his or her campaign can offer clues as to how he or she would govern.  Although Mitt Romney strove to build a "nimble" campaign in 2011, by Fall 2012 tweets, Facebook posts, blog posts and such famously had to be approved by 22 people.2  Certainly the disorganization and ad hoc nature of the 2016 Trump campaign have continued into his presidency. 


Notes
1. Joshua Jamerson.  "Women Have Most of Top Roles in Campaigns for Leading 2020 Democrats." Wall Street Journal,  May 24, 2019.

2. In a Jan. 2011 article Time's Michael Scherer quoted Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom: "Last time, Mitt's campaign was like IBM. This time, if he runs, he wants to be like JetBlue...  Which is to say, more nimble and more efficient and ready to respond." (Michael Scherer.  "Mitt Hits the Road Again."  Time.  Jan. 20, 2011).
Daniel Kreiss.  "Seizing the moment: The presidential campaigns' use of Twitter during the 2012 electoral cycle." in New Media & Society.  Sage Publications.  Dec. 5, 2014





Campaign Organization 2019-20


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