2020 Is a Brand New Game for Campaigns
You know the drill. Presidential election year. National media focus. Get out the vote. Huge rallies, even more money, all trying to get across the finish line first on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. Then 2020 happened.
Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D-Naperville) holds a virtual campaign event. (Photo: Facebook)
The coronavirus pandemic had little impact leading up to the Illinois Primary March 17 minus a few TV ads being pulled for big events like the Big Ten basketball tournament and the cancellation of events as the crisis widened. About six months later, as campaigns near what would customarily be considered be the final stretch of the fall campaigns, much of traditional thinking has been turned on its head.
“Vote by mail has pushed up the timeline. We are seeing way more campaigning now - trying to influence those that are going to vote early,” said one longtime GOP operative, who asked not to be identified due to work on current campaigns. “There's a lot of early mail, a lot of early TV and a ton of early digital.”
Democratic consultant Tom Bowen says the increased early vote means some advertising gets moved up, but campaigns will still have late deciding voters to convince.
“Presidential years are always a mix of heightened interest in voting among partisans,” said Bowen. “Late deciders are always going to decide late, so the only thing that's markedly different is what mix [there is] about voting early or voting by mail.”
Bowen anticipates campaigns could move about 10 to 15% of their advertising up to September to reach the influx of early voters. The Republican operative says some campaigns could frontload up to 25% of their dollars if they have the cash on hand. It surely has added to the gray hair and alcohol intake of many top campaign staffers around the state.
One thing it may have done for campaigns, per our Republican operative, is help identify who is going to the polls early.
“I think we have to step back and look at the fact that more than any time before VBM we have a greater sense of who is voting. We know as soon as we have ballot requests if those requesting are usually Democrat or Republican [and] has made it a far more targeted process in communicating right now with [those] would-be voters,” our source says. “Now, as Republicans, I think we have to admit the Democrats are probably doing this better than we are and clearly, from all data I've seen, they are better at getting their voters to ask for ballots.”
Bowen says earlier voting may be a boost for down ticket candidates in places where either Trump voters will be strong, like southern Illinois, or where Biden voters are expected to be strong, like in Chicago and the Cook County suburbs.
“I expect a bunch more partisan voting to line up, as in, Presidential preference is the same way down the ballot,” he says. “Evidence over the past few cycles has shown that not only is partisanship on the rise, but political parties are better at communicating that other candidates have the same agendas as the ticket leaders.”
Republican strategists say that may mean a tough sled for candidates down the ballot, like a Republican in the suburbs or a Democrat in central or southern Illinois. The strategist we spoke to says the law passed earlier this year to expand vote by mail sent applications to all 2018 General Election voters, which would skip Trump voters from 2016 who didn’t vote in the midterms.
“If we don't do some old fashioned get out the vote, maybe in new fashioned ways, there will be negative consequences for some Republican candidates. I do think if we get that Trump voter from 2016 to the polls, they likely will be ours down the ticket. It's just hard when the actual legislation and now law was written to literally help turn out Democrats.”
The Republican strategist we spoke to says this election will easily go down in the history books.
“Someone should have written a book – ‘How to Campaign in a Pandemic’ - except I don't think any of us know how,” the strategist said. “Look at this Presidential election. Biden is almost doing the front porch campaigns of James A. Garfield or William McKinley. Who would have thought?”