Campaign Timelines

For those of you who are only bystanders in campaigns for the general election herre is what is going on (vaguely) between now and November.

Campaigns that have a full slate of candidates are doing SWAT analysis against each other to determine their strategies. IP will do some SWAT analysis on these campaigns as well.

Knuth and Shine have until the end of June to fill vacancies for positions in which their party is not yet fielding candidates.

Other than using the good weather to go door to door all campaigns will be out of sight and out of mind until the beginning of August. The exception for this is fundraisers. But those aren't things noticed as much by the general public.

First-time challengers going against incumbents will start becoming visible at the beginning of August. All Other candidates will remain invisible until after Labor Day.

Expect mailers around Labor Day because most schools are in session.

September is considered the back stretch of a political race as campaigns ramp up activity. Expect forums and debates aplenty near the end of the month.There will also be the occasional radio ad.

If September is the back stretch then October is the home stretch. Campaigns will give everything they got at this point. There will be more forums and debates. Fundraising will taper off.

Yard Signs will start appearing October 1st though it is recommended to start them closer to midway through the month.

In the final two weeks of October there will be a constent barrage of mailers, radio and tv ads.

The weekend before the election most campaigns will have meetings to determine how they will handle the GOTV efforts.

I'll cover election day when we get there.

Note: there are a lot of other things that happen during this time. I acknowledge that. I'm just choosing not to name them all. I refuse to get carpal tunnel because of a single post.