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Ballotpedia:Editorial approach to writing about key campaign messages
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This article provides an overview of Ballotpedia's approach to writing about key campaign messages.
Campaign messages can include the candidate's policy platform, personal and professional experiences, political ideology, and public image. It can also be narrowed down to a set of key messages.
Behind the scenes of every major and most minor campaign operations, candidates and their strategists spend significant time and money to identify the three to five fundamental reasons why voters should support them over other candidates.
In expensive campaigns, these key messages are focus-grouped and polled. In less expensive operations like state house campaigns, the list of key messages is something the candidate and his or her strategists come up with on gut instinct, since polling and focus groups are likely unavailable.
This article discusses what the common characteristics of key messages are, how they can be identified, and why it matters to voters today and in the future.
Have questions about our editorial approach? Email us.
Key messages
Key messages answer the question of "why you should vote for me." Here are their common characteristics:
- The reasons offered to the electorate about "why you should vote for me" do not necessarily overlap with why the candidate personally and actually wants to get elected. Rather, in many cases, the key messages are based on what the campaign thinks the electorate wants to hear.
- Once a campaign determines its key messages, it is the job of someone at the campaign to ensure that those key messages show up in a variety of places. The places that the key messages will show up include debates, radio ads, television ads, robocalls, and postcard mailings to voters in the district.
- Repetition is key.
- The campaigns rank the messages in order of importance. They will nearly always choose just one of the messages as the key message, and hit it over and over and over again, with one or two more messages as secondary notes.
- Some messages only go to some constituencies. For example, if the candidate favors or opposes stricter gun regulation, that message might only go out on postcard mailings to special interest constituencies within the district that are known to particularly care about that message.
In addition to saying “why you should vote for me," campaigns also always have a list of reasons as to “why you shouldn’t vote for that other person." These key messages may also be focus-grouped and poll-tested. Sometimes surrogates are tasked with propagating these negative messages.
Identifying key messages
It is possible to discern and verify what the campaign’s key messages are as to “why you should vote for me" because these key themes manifest repeatedly in the campaign’s and candidate’s public utterances.
Coming up with the answer as to what the key themes are is coming up with an objective reality. In all but the most dysfunctional and chaotic campaigns, there is likely a memo where the campaign has internally identified them. Properly summarizing why a candidate thinks "you should vote for me" would reflect what was in that memo.
Another way of putting this point is to say that if two voters were both sent to study a particular candidate’s campaign website and debate transcripts to identify the key messages, they should both come up with the same list.
Key messages are historically important
An article that doesn’t include the information about what Candidate A was saying to his or her electorate to earn their support is missing a key piece of historical information.
One way to think about that is to imagine someone in 100 years reading an article about, say, the gubernatorial election in Florida in 2018. If the article does not include a section that explains to that reader 100 years in the future what each candidate was arguing to the electorate about why they ought to “vote for me, not the other person," then that hypothetical reader won’t really be able to understand the deep meaning of the election.
Key messages are deeply important to today's reader
In our articles about local and statewide ballot measures, we often include sections that give the arguments offered by the proponents and opponents as to why the electorate should vote for or against the ballot measure.
Candidate campaigns are, in this sense, no different from ballot measure campaigns. Both candidates are giving explicit reasons about “why you should for me and against the other person." Identifying those key messages in candidate campaigns is extremely helpful, just as it is helpful in ballot measure campaigns.
Candidates we cover
As of 2018, Ballotpedia identifies key messages in races we expect to be competitive or otherwise interesting. To choose races, factors we consider include the margin of victory in recent elections, whether a race is for an open seat, the length of time an incumbent may have spent in office, outside race ratings, and other special circumstances.
Within those races, Ballotpedia covers key messages for all major party candidates. We prioritize coverage of key campaign messages for third party, independent, and write-in candidates when there are three or fewer total candidates running.
To suggest a candidate, email us. For more, see Ballotpedia's editorial independence policy.
