Lessons in campaigning for local government

[BmorePat87]

So last night was Maryland's primary and the campaign I managed made it on to the general election. It is a unaffiliated Board of Ed race where the top 2 vote getters move on and we placed 1st.

I learned some interesting lessons.

1. Name recognition can be almost as powerful as hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars spent.

So we placed first and it makes sense because our campaign put in the most work. No other campaign knocked on doors, attended community meetings, and attended PTA meetings. No other campaign worked on the early voting polls or the day of polls. My friend, the candidate, had the most experience in education and was endorsed by the Baltimore Sun, the teacher's association, and all of our local delegates and councilman.

Despite this, we only got 4% more than the 2nd place finisher. This surprised us because the 2nd place finisher was the one candidate who did not campaign at all, did not raise any money, and told everyone she was just there to bring up the discipline policy at the debates (which she only showed up to roughly 2 of the 8 forums). She outdid everyone else who had an online presence, put up signs, raised money, and went to the forums.

Then I googled her name and "Baltimore" and realized she has the same name as a semi famous local broadway singer who performs at many of the local churches and in the city. We almost got 2nd place to someone who wasn't even in the race



2. Endorsements by major newspapers are meaningless.

The Sun endorsed nearly every race, including ours. We were happy to get the endorsement but an ally of ours, one of our local delegates, did not. His most serious competitor didn't either. They endorsed a candidate who literally used her forum appearances to cry (I shit you not) and just repeat generic political slogans ("people over politics!" was her favorite) while all of the other candidates offered serious policy positions. Her husband owns a ton of businesses so they just printed a bunch of giant signs with her face on them and littered our county with them.

What I thought was a serious publication endorsed a day care provider with empty rhetoric and signs over a retired Marine who has spent the last decade working on education and veteran policy for our district.


3. When there's no name recognition, you need to put in the work on the ground and can't depend on political alliances


I watched numerous candidates lose who did not have a serious ground game or who depended too heavily on their political alliances, even when they were by far the more qualified candidate.

When you remove any anomalies like an opponent sharing the same name as a known community figure, all that matters is reaching voters in person from every community in your jurisdiction.