Consultants will face a unique strategic challenge this cycle.
It’s still April, but voters are already fatigued — some say “exhausted” — by a cycle where the headliner is a rematch between Presidents Biden and Trump, and congressional races are lining up on issues that have long-been hot-button topics (immigration, abortion). But will that fatigue keep them home? Probably not, according to some experts.
“It is not safe, however, to assume that voter disdain for (or fatigue with) the available choices will depress turnout,” Ed Kilgore recently wrote in New York magazine. In fact, consultants — particularly Republicans — are acutely aware of their need to both engage disinterested voters and drive them to the polls.
“I think that there is, of course, fatigue among voters, but not to the point where it is depressing turnout,” Phil Valenziano, a VP at GOP comms shop ColdSpark, told C&E. “And so having the right message, delivering it the right way, using the right tactics, excelling on your early voting strategy — those are the margins that the campaigns are going to be won and lost on.”
Andrew Boucher, chairman of the Charleston County Republican Party and a partner at Ascent Strategic, said that candidates need to define themselves apart from the top of the ticket if they’re going to help drive turnout in November.
“If you’re in a suburban swing district where Trump’s going to run behind the down-ballot candidates,” he recently told C&E, “you have to come out of the box on Day One running hyper local, problem solving, issues oriented.
“We tell people: know where every pothole is and explain exactly how you’re going to fix that pothole long before you get to the fall.”
Whatever race you’re planning to run, don’t rely on help from the RNC or the Trump campaign, according to Seth Morrow, an EVP at Targeted Victory.
“There’s a lot of really tight races in states where there just won’t be significant national investment to turn out voters,” said Morrow. “And so there will be a lift that comes from, just a presidential year, but that’s probably not enough alone to make up for just trying to turn out the voter that you need to win in these battleground congressional races.”
Carter Kidd, president of Campaign Solutions, said campaigns should be planning to invest in both turnout and persuasion. “You can’t pick one or the other,” she said.
Moreover, she emphasized it was incumbent upon a candidate’s consulting team to help them navigate this cycle of top-of-the-ticket fatigue.
“Figure out what’s different and what’s special and what’s part of the story, and help guide them and help them understand, ‘hey, you’re not Trump,’” she said. “And that’s okay. … Here’s the interesting things about your bio. I’ve listened to you and really helped guide it.”
