Political campaigns are traditionally run top-down, with political strategists crafting messages in workshops and focus groups, analyzing data, and targeting narrow groups of persuadable voters and donors. But in the last 12 days, we’ve witnessed the birth of something entirely new: crowdsourced campaigning.
Kamala Harris has already achieved something unprecedented. $200 million During her first week as the nominee, Harris solicited huge donations from Biden, amounts unprecedented in political history, yet her campaign, apart from a new logo, is the exact same organization as the Biden campaign that has been struggling for months. How could that happen?
The answer is that the campaign itself doesn’t really do much other than ride the wave.
This is not a criticism. It’s the smartest move they’ve made, and it shows incredible agility and adaptability, something former President Donald Trump’s campaign couldn’t keep up with. Despite having months of preparation for a possible Harris campaign, Trump still has his insults ready to go. nickname.
Consider the evidence: The tsunami of excitement unleashed by Joe Biden’s withdrawal spawned an organically coordinated grassroots movement of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. Online Memes It’s politically valuable, something the Harris campaign could never have produced on its own, no matter how much time or money it spent.Blood Summer“And that coconut trees; They just hang on to it for the best value.
The same goes for volunteering and fundraising. Campaigns are 170,000 new volunteers In just one week. But the campaign didn’t recruit these people or convince them to donate. They just signed up and donated.
Zoom Call phenomenon The past 12 days have seen several massive video calls involving hundreds of thousands of people to rally support and funds for Harris. The energy behind these calls was not generated by the campaign. In fact, many of these calls had nothing to do with the campaign at all. The Harris campaign Did not organize The “White Men for Harris” coalition was probably initially pretty nervous about the idea, but the grassroots-organized, three-hour event, which drew 180,000 people and raised nearly $4 million, probably got them over the hump.
Even the campaign messaging is outsourced. Key information from independent media Focus Groups The campaign developed its “Those people are weird” messaging internally and did not A/B test it. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said: I first started using And when the campaign saw the traction the idea was getting, they ran with it.
Only now are campaigns beginning to produce results relevant to their own issues. contentBut going too far in that direction might be a mistake: Serious policy debates are good, but in this race, memorable slogans are better.
America no longer has undecided voters who can be swayed by a 50-page white paper on border security and immigration reform. The remaining persuadable voters are not policy wonks. They are more likely to be moved by the campaign zeitgeist. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and “Dig, dig, dig” are not policy statements. They are effective because they evoke images that even busy voters can quickly understand.
Instead of coming up with clever slogans and feeding the tens of thousands of creatives who would amplify her message if given the chance, the Harris campaign has shown signs of wanting to explain things, and in this election, if you explain things, even policy, you lose.
Take border security, one of the most important issues in this election: Harris needs her own version of “build the wall!”, but her campaign has turned it into an issue they have to explain. 3 minutesHow much better would it be for Harris to say, “I’m a prosecutor. I want order on the border. I fully support Senator Jim Lankford’s proposal.” Tough border security bill” It’s short, memorable and a lot of fun for content creators.
The Harris campaign is already running a campaign unlike any other. The temptation to channel the energy and creative fires that Harris has unleashed into more traditional avenues is understandable, but it would be a mistake. This is shaping up to be a wave-like election for the Democratic Party. It’s unclear how high that wave will crest, but with three months to go, Harris has no choice but to ride it as long as she can.
Chris Trucks He is an appellate lawyer who served as Southern California chairman for John McCain’s 2008 primary campaign.
