Campaign professionals barely beat chance at guessing which messages persuade voters
A 2024 study asked American political practitioners to predict which campaign messages would actually change minds. They did scarcely better than chance, and no better than ordinary people given the same task. The finding sits awkwardly beside an industry of managers, consultants and pollsters built on the promise of knowing what works.
Open campaigning in its modern form goes back to Aaron Burr in the American presidential election of 1800. Today a campaign organisation resembles a business of similar size, except that much of its workforce is unpaid. A campaign manager handles strategy, fundraising, budgets, advertising, polling and turnout. Consultants research the candidate, the voters and the opposition while guarding the public image, and volunteer activists knock on doors and make phone calls.
The message is usually a handful of talking points repeated until they stick. Most campaigns keep it broad, since narrow messages can alienate voters or bog the candidate down in detail, and opponents try to push rivals off message with unrelated questions. In the 2008 American race John McCain switched from stressing patriotism and experience to casting himself as a maverick, while Barack Obama stayed with a single theme of change throughout.
The political scientist Joel Bradshaw reduced strategy to four propositions. Every electorate splits into the candidate's base, the opponent's base and the undecided; voting records and surveys reveal who falls where; nobody needs everyone's support; and resources of money, time and message should go only to the groups that can deliver victory. All of this is usually written into a campaign plan setting out goal, audience and resources.
Getting the message out means juggling paid media, such as advertisements and staged events, with earned media, the free coverage of news stories and social posts, which may be flattering or may come from gaffes and scandals. Each feeds the other, and candidates with more attention tend to win more often. Advertising rules vary widely: the United States treats it as a free market, while Ireland forbids campaign advertising. Blending commercial advertising, propaganda, entertainment and public relations has even earned a name, politainment. In America, since the Citizens United ruling of 2010, political action committees can channel outside money that may exceed a campaign's own spending.
Source: Political campaign
