ABSTRACT
Should our candidate focus on healthcare or on education in next week’s televised debate? Campaigns have to consider and decide myriad such questions every day. This chapter is about how good campaigns find the right answer to that question. While the question seems simple and straightforward, answering it immediately requires
answering a host of other questions first. Should the candidate participate in the debate at all? How will the debate fit with what voters think about the candidate and with the image the candidate wants to project? Should the debate be used to explain the candidate’s positions or to point out opponents’ weaknesses? There is no way a campaign can afford the time to start deliberating about each of these
issues from scratch as they arise. Rather, campaigns rely on a number of assumptions and prior decisions that all stem from an overall strategy. All decisions in the campaign, from messaging to scheduling to resource allocation, should be based on a core strategy plan. Such a plan is simply the blueprint that lays out the route to victory for the campaign, but it can be successful only if it is based on good information, rather than assumptions. A campaign plan based on instinct and anecdotal evidence is likely to fail. That’s why research should play a crucial role in good campaigns. It minimizes guessing and
provides answers necessary for campaigns to effectively create strategies and keep them on track. Research also raises the alert for possible risks and opportunities, and provides answers to questions where campaigns simply don’t know or opinions differ. Good campaigns use the acquired knowledge to develop the right message that reaches the right target though the right vehicles. This chapter argues that voter research is an indispensible tool for creating an effective campaign strategy, and explains the different methods and approaches available and how they can be used most effectively in politics.
