There are a million ways to run a bad campaign, and in the nearly four decades I’ve spent working in this industry, I feel like I’ve seen just about all of them. Over the past couple of months, I’ve written a lot about campaign strategies that don’t work–the outdated tactics, the tired messaging, the lazy assumptions, and the misguided myths that too many Democrats cling to, and that have cost our party winnable elections for years.
But I’ve also seen–and worked on–campaigns that overcame long odds, built unprecedented coalitions, and shocked the professional pundit class on Election Day. That includes Democrats who won statewide in the conservative strongholds of Montana and North Dakota; the “doyenne of anti-gun advocates in the House“ who nonetheless held a longtime Republican seat for nine terms; and, of course, the “skinny kid with a funny name“ who just opened his Presidential library.
Every winning campaign I’ve led, supported, watched, or studied is geographically, demographically, and ideologically unique. But I’ve learned that just about all of them share a few things in common. Back in 2020, I wrote in the Financial Times about the “3Ms” that every smart campaign relentlessly, obsessively optimizes for: message, money, and mobilization. The framework has held up–but a lot has changed since then, too.
These days, I count four Ms: message, movement, momentum, and money. The campaign that beats its opponent across these four metrics wins, period.
My Mythbusting Before the Midterms series was about helping you identify, and block out, the noise of modern electoral politics–the siren songs that distract and destroy promising Democratic candidates and campaigns. Today, let’s talk about the signal–the lodestars that need to drive every decision a campaign makes, and that illuminate the pathway to victory.
Message
A campaign’s message is its answer to the most basic question every voter asks: Why should I vote for you? It’s the sum total of everything a candidate stands for, believes in, and will fight for on their constituents’ behalf. It’s not a slogan (though a great one helps). It’s not a stack of policy white papers (though policy does matter). It’s the through-line connecting everything a campaign does, says, and spends money on. And the candidate with the best message almost always wins.
Quite simply, a voter wants to know what a candidate believes in and what they will do to make life a little bit better for that voter and their family. If you can’t explain this, you shouldn’t be running.
What exactly constitutes that message is the multi-billion-dollar question. In non-presidential races, there is no single universal message that wins everywhere; a Democrat running in a suburban Virginia swing district doesn’t need to speak to the same needs, hopes, or anxieties as a candidate in Milwaukee or rural Nevada. But every winning campaign needs to identify a message that is sharp, inspirational, understandable, affirmative, and relevant.
In 2026, a winning message might be centered around inflation and the cost of living–that’s the message Mikie Sherrill rode to the New Jersey governor’s mansion last year. It might be focused on the job market, as it was in Abigail Spanberger‘s double-digit win in Virginia. It might offer a positive vision for fixing the housing crisis or expanding access to healthcare. It might be a promise to keep our military out of forever wars. Or it might be a clear, unambiguous vow to fight back against the MAGA agenda.
Whatever it is, a campaign’s message needs to be compelling, consistent, and authentic to the candidate. Those are the only messages that ever truly resonate with voters, earn support, and win elections. Voters are so much smarter than Washington thinks, and they can see right through a politician who doesn’t know who they are or what they believe.
By the way–a consistent message isn’t necessarily a static one. Good messaging is solid at its core but adaptable in practice. Just as a good coach makes tweaks to their game plan without ripping up the entire playbook, candidates can–and should–refine their message when conditions demand it. The best messages are sharpened constantly, based on what’s breaking through, what’s landing flat, and what the moment calls for.
Movement
Identifying a compelling message is only part of the battle. The goal of a campaign’s message is to move voters–from the opposition camp to your own, from their couch to the polls, and from passive support to passionate support. Every single tactical decision a campaign makes, from what ads to run to what doors to knock to how a candidate’s time is allocated to what gets posted on TikTok, should be in service of getting that message out and moving voters.
Much ink has been spilled over the best ways to reach voters today. Digital platforms like TikTok and YouTube are critically important for connecting with, informing, and persuading them. Voters increasingly consume and trust podcasts because the intimate, long-form format fosters genuine relationships between hosts and audiences. Paid advertising still works, particularly in down-ballot races, where voters have little information about candidates–research published in the American Political Science Review found that a 100-ad buy produces minimal movement in presidential races, but creates roughly a seven-times greater shift in Senate contests and sixteen times more in House races. And person-to-person connection–door-knocking, phone banking, grassroots house parties–when done right, with the right message, to the right voters, is irreplaceable.
The best campaigns don’t choose between these channels; they orchestrate them. A voter might first encounter a candidate on TikTok, get reinforced by a targeted ad, and finally be moved to act by a neighbor knocking on their door. Each touchpoint compounds the last.
And these tactics have to adapt to their audience. Persuadable Republicans may respond best to a conversation about shared values at their front door. A well-placed podcast appearance or a pointed contrast ad might win over swing voters. Base supporters need to feel the urgency and enthusiasm that turns a checked-out voter into a phone banker. Campaigns should think less about which tactics work, and more about how to ensure every tactic works together–tailored to the right audience, in service of the same clear message, aimed at moving each voter from wherever they are to where you need them to be.
Momentum
I see this mistake all the time: a candidate has a great launch, or a decisive primary win, or a surprising fundraising quarter, or a viral video hit–and then the campaign goes dark for weeks. When conditions seem favorable, campaigns are tempted to run out the clock. And so the press moves on, volunteers lose touch, and the lead evaporates. By the time fall rolls around, the momentum everyone was talking about in the spring has been paved over by inertia.
The campaigns that convert a favorable environment into an election-night celebration actively work to garner, shape, and further their momentum throughout their campaign. You can’t bank enthusiasm the way you bank cash; it has to be constantly renewed. And so these campaigns stay visible and active throughout the summer and into the fall, making news, hosting events, rolling out endorsements, earning media coverage, and buying ads. They use their moment in the spotlight to define their opponent and drive home the stakes of the race. Most importantly, they organize and convert enthusiasm into dollars, volunteer hours, and, once early voting opens, actual ballots.
Throughout my Mythbusting series, I made the point that the wind at our party’s back this spring reached gale-force strength–and that the chance we’d grow complacent keeps me up at night. The question isn’t whether we have momentum. It’s whether our campaigns are disciplined enough to sustain it.
Money
Like it or not, money is the gasoline that fuels campaigns. And since Citizens United–one of the worst decisions the Court has handed down in my lifetime–a campaign’s cash flow, both what comes in and what goes out, has become absolutely decisive.
Money determines when and how a campaign’s message reaches the electorate. It funds the ads that move voters and determines how many run, for how long, in which markets. It governs the size and sophistication of a campaign’s field operation and pays the staff who knock on doors. And it functions as a public proxy for viability–donors read FEC reports, and candidates who can’t raise money can’t recruit surrogates, earn media, or sustain a serious operation. Research published in the Journal of Politics found that spending on voter-directed messages has a statistically significant effect on voter support–and is especially effective in changing the composition of the electorate, rather than simply persuading people to switch sides.
On June 30, the stakes got even higher. The Supreme Court struck down the cap on how much party committees can spend in coordination with their own candidates. Parties used to be able to coordinate only a capped amount with each candidate. Now there’s no ceiling.
Make no mistake: this decision helps the other side. It’s the culmination of a long, Mitch McConnell-led push to kill the small-dollar, grassroots advantage Democrats have built, and to drag power back to the party committees and the big-dollar donors behind them. Republicans lean on big-dollar donors who can write a $44,300 check to a party committee–money a candidate capped at $3,500 could never take directly. Now that cash can flow straight into the races Republicans most want to win. We built our operation on the grassroots. The rules of the game just changed, and they didn’t change in our favor.
Democratic campaigns need to raise enough money to meet their tactical needs–and then spend it all VERY CAREFULLY. The goal should be to end Election Night with an empty tank. There are no prizes for fiscal righteousness in electoral politics. There are only winners and losers.
The Flywheel
These four Ms don’t work like batteries, each running independently to power a campaign. Instead, each M is part of a campaign flywheel, where each component compounds upon the others to create unstoppable momentum and growth:
A compelling message moves voters.
Moved voters generate momentum.
Momentum attracts money.
Money amplifies the message–which moves more voters, builds more momentum, and brings in more money.
The campaigns that truly understand this don’t optimize each element in isolation. They build systems that make the whole thing self-perpetuating.
That’s what we did in 2012, when I ran President Obama’s reelection campaign. It’s easy to forget now, but by historical standards, we were underdogs: no incumbent president had won reelection with unemployment above 7.2% since FDR. But we had a message: that America’s recovery was real, that the middle class deserved a president who would fight for them, and that our opponent represented a return to the exact policies that had crashed the economy in the first place. That message moved voters, particularly in the Rust Belt states that would decide the election. The movement generated enthusiasm, which powered one of the most sophisticated field operations in the history of American politics: 2.2 million volunteers making personal contact with voters in the campaign’s final weeks. That grassroots energy drove a fundraising operation that raised over a billion dollars, which we reinvested into the ads, the data, and the ground game that delivered 332 electoral votes. Oh, and we had the best candidate of our generation.
Message begat movement. Movement begat momentum. Momentum begat money. Money amplified it all. And on Election Day, we romped.
Democrats have an opportunity to do so again this November.
It will take campaigns that are disciplined, focused, and strategic. It will take candidates who are visible, active, and compelling. And it will take donors, activists, and volunteers who appreciate that vibes don’t win elections–only hard work does.
But together, we can take back Congress, lay the groundwork for 2028, and start to close the book on the MAGA era.
Great article! Thanks for sharing your expertise.