Planning Your Ground Game by the Numbers - Pre-Campaign Analysis - Vote Target

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Ground Game Analysis

Summary

Elections are not necessarily won by the most popular candidate; rather they are won by the candidate with the most votes. The space between these two ideas, supporters and actual votes, is occupied by the campaign’s ground game or Get Out The Vote (GOTV) operation. An efficient ground game is a key step towards securing victory. The purpose of this article is to familiarize you with the numbers that underpin your ground game planning for finding the supporters who you will want to turn out to the polls. This article walks through a method for: Analyzing your and your opponents’ past results Determining targets for canvassing Breaking it all down to the polling subdivision level.

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More Information

This article uses data and campaign results from a fictional campaign in "Ward 99". Refer to the accompanying “Sample Election History – Ward 99” file for the raw data referred to in this resource.

This article also outlines a process for building a pre-campaign report. A link to the full example report is included in this resource under "Pre-Campaign Report - Ward 99".