A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making process within a specific group. Traditional ground campaigning and voter contacts remain the most effective strategies. Some research suggests that knocking on doors can increase turnout by as much as 10% and phone calls by as much as 4%. A review of more than 200 get-out-the-vote experiments finds that door-to-door canvassing increases turnout by 1.0% point, direct mail by 0.7% points, and phone calls by 0.4% points.
Campaigns often dispatch volunteers into local communities to meet with voters and persuade people to support the candidate. The volunteers are also responsible for identifying supporters, recruiting them as volunteers or registering them to vote if they are not already registered. The identification of supporters will be useful later as campaigns remind voters to cast their votes.
Late in the campaign, campaigns will launch expensive television, radio, and direct mail campaigns aimed at persuading voters to support the candidate. Campaigns will also intensify their grassroots campaigns, coordinating their volunteers in a full court effort to win votes.
- Techniques and traditions
- Canvassing
- Election litter
- Election promise
- Husting
- Lawn sign
- Microtargeting
- Permanent campaign
- Political campaign staff
- Robocalls & Personalized audio messaging
- Votebank
- Research strategies of election campaign communication research