Creating Your County Campaign Plan

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Creating Your County Campaign Plan
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Why create a county campaign plan?

• Gives more realistic view of your countys
  situation
• Keeps participants focused
• Helps Party prioritize activities
• Shows youre serious about winning

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Campaign Plan- a comprehensive document that
plans for

• Budgeting
• Fundraising
• Event scheduling
• Voter registration
• GOTV
• Mail ballot programs
• HQ staffing
• Volunteer recruiting
• Appointing coordinators (volunteer)
• Outreach opportunities

• Speakers bureau
• Candidate relations
• Training
• Internal communications
• Media relations
• Candidate recruitment
• Primary Election support
• Convention involvement
• Sign placement
• Eliminate duplication of effort

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When should we start?

• IMMEDIATELY!
• A lot of work must be done before
• we have candidates.
• Dont wait until Labor Day!

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5 Easy Steps

• Get Started
• Find Facts
• Goals
• Write it Down
• Delegate Set Action Items

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Step 1- Get Started

• Appoint a work group or committee
• or delegate to an existing committee

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Step 2- Find Facts

• Dont make assumptions about the state of your
  county
• Gather information
• List of registered voters with Voter History
  (VAN)
• Election results from the last 10 years (VAN)
• Precinct by precinct total Voting Age
  Population (TDP)
• Election Calendar from the Secretary of State
  (TDP or SOS)
• Dates of community events, parades, fairs
  festivals (TDP calendar)
• Municipal sign ordinances (varies by city)
• Dates of Democratic Party events (TDP calendar)
• Dates of school college events - such as
  Homecoming (community newspaper)
• List of area media contacts - papers, magazines,
  radio, tv, community websites (TDP)
• A precinct map of your county (County Elections
  office)
• Or any other information you might find useful

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Step 3- Goals

• TARGETING
• Start by determining your base Democratic vote
• Is the Democratic Performance of your county
  above 50 1 ?
• If YES- set goals that ensure Democrats get out
  to vote
• If NO- set goals that help you find more
  Democratic voters
• Note While a candidates goal is always 50 1
  vote, the County Partys goal may be to simply
  overperform by a certain percentage

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Targeting Precincts

• 65 GOTV
• 64.9 to 55 Base
• 54.9 to 50 High Swing
• 49.9 to 45 Low Swing
• 44.9 to 35 Cut Margin
• 35- Enemy

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Targeting Individuals
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Sample NCEC data
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NCEC Vocabulary

• Turnout Percent - Estimate of what percent of
  eligible voters will vote
• Expected Vote Turnout percent as a number
• Persuasion Percent Percentage of swing voters
  available
• Persuasion Index Persuasion percent turned into
  a number of persuadable voters
• Democratic Performance Average Democratic vote
  you could expect to get
• GOTV Percent Percent of less likely voters that
  could be turned out with effective GOTV
• GOTV Index GOTV Percent turned into a number of
  low performance voters
• Persuasion Share Share of the overall
  persuadables that live in this area

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Targeting
Identify and prioritize your targets
Total Expected Vote current reg X exp turnout
Determine Dem and Rep base avg past 3 bad
elections
Define the swing vote 100-(Dem Base Rep Base)
Persuadable
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Targeting
Vote Goal Expected vote x .50 1 of votes
needed to win (should estimate at 52)
How much of that will you get from your
base? Expected vote x base vote of base votes
How much do you need from the swing universe to
get to your goal? of votes needed to win
comfortably - of base votes deficit
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Targeting
Civic involvement GOOD Losing elections
because we turn out people who arent going to
vote Democrat BAD Target Target Target
53
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Step 3- Goals

• SUPPORT GOALS
• What will you need to do to reach your goals?
• Fundraising
• Volunteer recruitment
• Voter registration

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Step 4- Delegate/ Set Action Items

• Delegate
• Appoint project/event managers
• Let them outline their own project
• Set Action Items

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Step 5- Write It Down

• Make a timeline or calendar of your goals,
  collected dates deadlines
• Use a blank calendar
• or a computer
• Fill in deadlines dates
• Fill in tasks action items working backwards
  from Election Day

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Finishing Your Document

• Dont hesitate to amend the plan as needed
• Print 2 versions
• Managers version
• Summary of research
• List of goals targets
• Calendar or timeline listing goals, deadlines
  action items
• Volunteer Opportunity version
• Calendar of volunteer opportunities, events
  selected deadlines

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Using the Plan

• Managers version
• Distribute to pct. Chairs, project managers,
  candidates, Democratic Officeholders
• Use as a fundraising tool
• Use to demonstrate your County Party is serious
  about winning
• Make available to any Democrat who wants to see
  it
• Volunteer Opportunity version
• Distribute to supporters

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Supporting the Plan

• Provide support tools to activists
• Maps, List of voters (VAN), incentives
• Encourage others to create their own plan to
  support the County Partys plan
• Pct chairs
• SDEC members
• Clubs
• Follow through
• Actually DO the things on your Plan