Summary: Local politicians and the dangers of incumbency - close proximity to voters can lead to victories for challengers.
Typically incumbents are the politicians with the least to worry about. The incumbency effect can often keep you in office for as long as you want because you have the name recognition, resources, and record to make you more credible than a challenger.
However, Politico reports in a new article that the current landscape - troubled by the impacts of the national recession - may simply be unfavorable for incumbents at the moment. Rather than starting in Virginia and New Jersey - which pundits are watching closely for their 2010 implications - the article points to the races that are not getting the same national attention: mayoral elections.
From the article:
Some incumbent mayors have already lost their races. Others have held on to win—or are likely to win next week—with greatly diminished margins from their previous re-election bids. Either way, local incumbents are bleeding badly after being buffeted by the pressures of high unemployment, low tax revenues and a volatile, impatient electorate…
…"People are lashing out, have less patience with the elected officials closest to them," said Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, the longest-serving mayor in city history and a former president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. "That kind of angst materializes either in walking away from the system or in deciding that whoever is up for election must have played some role, somehow, in some way, in the international financial crisis."…
…Tom Cochran, the executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, recently attended a mayors' conference in Seattle where he met with an alarmed group of city leaders.
"Many mayors have talked to me about—those that are not running and those that are running—sometimes how difficult it is to deal with people in ordinary places like coffee places, bars, churches," Cochran said. "They had great hopes for the stimulus, providing jobs, that's been late coming."
It's not just mayors who should be spooked, Cochran warned: "If I were a congressman I'd be looking at this baby right now, because they are going to hit reality when they go back home for Christmas."
Where are these anti-incumbent tendencies coming from?
The article continues:
[Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’] defeat had little to do with partisan politics—both his rivals were Democrats. Seattle consultant Randy Bannecker suggested it emerged from the city's restive mood.
"It is sort of this combination of an interest in progressiveness, in progressive issues, coupled with a yearn for an anti-government or an outsider figure," Bannecker said. "You’d talk to people in various parts of the city, various constituencies; they couldn’t really articulate why they opposed [Nickels]."…
…Some veterans of mayoral politics caution against reading too much into the outcomes of local races. Instead of reflecting national trends, they argue, mayoral elections often have more to do with the mechanics of local government and the delivery of city services.
"There's a little bit of variety in these local races that makes generalization a bit problematic," said former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith.
But while the national mood isn’t the sole factor driving mayor's races, Goldsmith acknowledged that those forces can help set the terms of the local debate.
Indeed, the city Goldsmith once governed was home to the most surprising mayoral upset of 2007, when Democratic Mayor Bart Peterson lost to an unknown and underfinanced Republican after a debate over property taxes spun out of control.
So will anger towards local incumbents mean a bad political landscape for Congressional or even state incumbents? We’ll have to wait until next November to really know for sure.
Summary: Keeping voters engaged and predicting election outcomes – What we learned from Twitter in the New York City Elections.
Democratic strategist Joe Trippi picked up a surprising piece of news on his blog recently: it seems that the use of Twitter and Facebook by Democratic candidates in New York City could have helped one predict the outcome of Tuesday’s primaries there.
Nancy Scola of TechPresident.com wrote in a blog post yesterday that the winners of the races for Public Advocate, Manhattan District Attorney and City Comptroller might have done as well as they did thanks to the online support they built with social networking websites.
From the post:
In the New York City Public Advocate race, city councilmember Bill DiBlasio scored something of a surprise win, 33% to 31%, over former two-term Public Advocate Mark Green. (It's only a temporary "win." Since neither candidate broke the 40% mark, under city law the race goes into a run off.) While Green's name recognition is strong in the city, given his past service to the city in the same position he was gunning for, this time around his campaign never seemed to build up steam -- which is borne out by the social media numbers at play. DiBlasio collected 3,265 followers, combining his Twitter and Facebook numbers, to Green's far fewer 445…
…The Manhattan District Attorney race had been contentious, dramatic, and up for grabs. It looked for a time like Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder might emerge victorious over Cyrus Vance, despite the fact that Vance was the heir apparent to the influential sitting DA Robert Morgenthau. But Vance fairly trounced Snyder last night, 44% to 30%. A somewhat unforeseen story, but one nonetheless foretold by their respective Facebook and Twitter tallies. Vance had 1,582 admirers and followers to Snyder's 881. Attorney Richard Aborn came in third in both votes and online allies, with 26% of the vote and 720 followers and fans.
And in the Comptroller race, Queens councilmember John Liu pulled out 38% of the vote over Brooklyn councilmember David Yassky's 31%. (A result that, again, calls for a run-off at the to take place at the end of the month.) Surprising? Perhaps. But not if you're keeping tabs on how popular Liu and Yassky were doing online. Liu's Twitter-plus-Facebook tally amounted to 1,159 followers and fans, while Yassky pulled in with somewhat fewer, at 364 admirers and followers.
Of course, Scola was also right to point out that not all of the candidates had a vote total that corresponded with their social networking support.
In the Comptroller's race, David Weprin managed to amass almost as many followers as the top two candidates in the race (1,858 to Liu and Yassky's combined 2,073). But he won a much smaller share of the vote, with just 11%. And in the Public Advocate contest, Queens councilmember Eric Goia racked up more than five times the friends and followers as the second place finisher Green -- but he managed to only place a disappointing far third.
Having a lot of followers on Twitter or supporters on Facebook does not mean your campaign will automatically be successful, and relying on such websites for Election Day is a poor strategy that no well-run campaign would take.
However, utilizing these resources as a tool for fundraising or recruiting volunteers can make a campaign very strong - and it’s very possible that Tuesday’s winners had been doing just that.
As we wrote about New Media in our 21st Century Campaigning series last month:
Keeping supporters engaged is a highly important function of any campaign. Without engaged supporters, a campaign is unable to raise money or find volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls.
That means campaigns have to keep supporters interested and active in the daily developments of the race.
…the effectiveness of such outreach comes down to what we call the “Twitter talent.” A major part of it is passing the “‘Who Cares?’ Test” - you have to post something relevant that your followers will be interested in.
In fact, some of the NYC candidates were doing just that with their Twitter and Facebook outreach. Scola mentions how Mark Green used his Twitter feed creatively, tweeting 100 “New Ideas for a Better City” to his followers.
Unfortunately for Green, creative tweeting is just one of the necessary parts of an effective New Media strategy. A campaign also needs to continually grow their list of supporters and followers in order to raise more money and get more volunteers. To that effect, it is very beneficial for a campaign to hire a New Media Coordinator who can devote their time to building a social networking base, among other things.
Luckily for candidates like Green, they have time to do these things before the run-off election.
Part 3 of our 10-part series: “21st Century Campaigning”
It doesn’t take a political scientist to know that there are big differences between larger and smaller races. From the bigger turnout to saturated ad markets, large statewide and national campaigns completely overshadow local ones.
But despite the lack of attention from the voters and media, there are some real pluses to running a smaller campaign.
For one thing, a candidate in a small race can literally talk to every single voter before the election - sometimes more than once! Nothing is as effective as a face-to-face connection between a voter and a candidate. Larger campaigns cannot do that because it just isn’t practical - there are too many people! So they turn to TV and radio ads, direct mail, and robo-calls out of necessity.
It all began when progressive reforms to dismantle political machines took effect in the 20th Century. As it happened, campaigns began to shift from being party-centered to candidate-centered. The result was that the traditional mass volunteer base that the parties relied on diminished, leaving candidate-centered campaigns with less man-power.
So began what Professor J. Cherie Strachan refers to as the “professionalization” of elections: larger campaigns began to rely more and more on modern forms of communication (radio, television, and later internet) and other sophisticated marketing tactics. Meanwhile, smaller campaigns could continue the traditional way of campaigning because they never required a lot of man-power in the first place.
Except that this appears to be changing. More and more often, smaller campaigns are beginning to employ the same sophisticated tactics as the larger ones - targeted direct mail, radio ads, polls, and even TV spots. A survey Strachan conducted of mayoral candidates nationally found that 88% used one or more of these tactics for their campaigns.
Why are they doing this when they can just meet the voters personally?
In her book, High-Tech Grass Roots, Strachan says
“One of the best predictors of whether an innovation will be adopted is the perceived relative advantage it provides over the idea it supersedes…In this case, local government candidates would consider using sophisticated tactics when lower initial cost and the improved ability to target desired voters enhanced their perceptions of the relative advantage that such tactics could provide.”
It’s not just a perceived advantage - it’s real. Knocking on doors is time-consuming for a candidate. When you can narrow down voters by their likeliness to vote (and more importantly, their likeliness to vote for you) with a voter file, you can save a considerable amount of time meeting them.
Then, rather than going back to their house 3 or 4 times throughout the campaign, you can send them a mail piece addressing their specific political concerns and maybe meet them in person only twice.
And when you’re able to raise the money, a poll can go a long way towards solidifying your message and overcoming your opponent. TV or radio ads, if you can afford them, can help foster an image of your legitimacy as a politician.
And looking like the guys on the national stage is becoming easier (and in many cases, cheaper) than ever. Campaign websites are easy for interested voters to access while email and social networking services like Facebook and Twitter can keep your supporters up-to-date on fundraisers, field events, and more.
So long as these “professional” tactics are supplemented with the most effective campaign tactic - meeting voters in person - small race candidates should be encouraged to use them.
Ultimately, the methods pursued will come down to cost-benefit analysis (“how much money can I raise?” “what can I get with that money?” “how many votes would doing those things actually get me?”) and no two campaigns are exactly the same. However, smaller campaigns across the country are all beginning to look more and more like the bigger ones in terms of strategy and tactics - and in order to run for a smaller seat it’s becoming a greater necessity too.
Come back Tuesday for Part 4: Fundraising!
