Add another voice to the “field will be crucial in 2024″ discussion: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The independent presidential candidate told CNN this week that his campaign has deployed some 200,000 volunteers to help him gain ballot access in all 50 states.
“We have a very, very good volunteer army out there,” he said. “We already have the biggest field operation of any campaign. We are going to have no problem getting on the ballot in every state.”
Currently, the candidate is only confirmed to be on the ballot in Utah, and while his campaign claims to have the needed signatures for ballot access in North Carolina (and a handful of other states) ballot access for Kennedy remains a very uphill battle.
While Kennedy was talking up the strength of his own operation, consultants have also been calling for investment in field organizing, and talking up how necessary it will be for campaigns to boost spending on organizing programs this cycle.
“Everybody likes an ad, but the days of a TV ad winning a race have long gone,” Jeff Roe, founder of Axiom Strategies, recently told C&E.
Roe predicted that field investment in the battleground presidential states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina will help decide both the White House race and which major party controls Congress.
“It’s 67,000 votes,” Roe said, referencing the difference between Hillary Clinton and President Trump’s vote totals in deciding states in 2016. “The investment in those six, maybe seven states on the ground motivating people to vote for their party preference is going to be the whole game.”
Part of the reason why that investment is so crucial is because of how hard it is to thread the needle to reach the right people with an effective TV ad.
“You have 18 percent of the population that doesn’t watch video, that don’t have any TV in their house,” he said. “And then you have streaming, which just passed linear TV last year — and half of that is not ad supported.
“So now you’re up to about 35-40 percent of the population that will not see an ad [but] do watch TV, and now you got to get the right ad on at the right time.” He added: “Turnout is everything.”
Chelsea Peterson Thompson, general manager of NGP VAN, has sounded a similar strategic message. “I think [field is] going to be absolutely critical to our success in 2024,” she said. “I think it’s critical to success, at every level of the ballot.”
Peterson Thompson said she is confident the Biden-Harris campaign and Democratic state parties will invest in field operations this cycle at the needed levels.
“I do think it’s going to be a huge emphasis on traditional organizing, which is exciting,” she said.
