Political Campaign Strategy
Ronald C. Rice learned campaigns by running his father’s races for city council and the New Jersey State Senate, and has since been part of more than 40 local, county, state and federal political battles: youth coordinator for Sharpe James’s first winning campaign for Mayor of Newark, Assistant Essex County Coordinator for Governor Jim Florio’s re-election, Essex County Coordinator for Obama for America in 2008, a two-term Newark council member elected in 2006 and 2010, and a candidate for Congress in 2012.
Strategic counsel for candidates seeking municipal, county, school board and other local offices. Our approach emphasizes disciplined campaign planning, authentic community engagement, coalition building, effective communications and voter outreach.
Local races are won on organization, relationships and discipline
A council, county or school board race is not a scaled-down statewide campaign. The electorate is smaller and knows more, the issues are closer to home, and a candidate’s reputation in the community counts for more than any advertisement. The campaigns that win treat those facts as advantages and plan around them.
We begin with a political landscape assessment and a campaign plan: the district as it actually is, the constituencies that decide it, the organization the campaign needs and the calendar it has to live by. Candidate positioning and message development come from who the candidate really is and what the district really needs, not from a template. Then we build the voter targeting strategy, the community outreach, the coalition and the grassroots organizing that turn a plan into turnout.
Candidate preparation runs alongside: speeches and talking points, debate and candidate-forum preparation, stakeholder engagement, the fundraising strategy, the campaign communications strategy and Election Day readiness. Our founder has been a candidate, a two-term council member and a strategist for others, so the counsel comes from someone who has knocked the doors, stood at the forum lectern and waited for the returns.
Everything between the decision to run and the returns
- Campaign strategy and planning
- Political landscape assessments
- Campaign organization
- Candidate positioning
- Message development
- Voter targeting strategy
- Community outreach
- Coalition building
- Grassroots organizing
- Stakeholder engagement
- Candidate preparation
- Speech and talking-point development
- Debate and candidate-forum preparation
- Fundraising strategy
- Campaign communications strategy
- Election Day readiness
Start with a pre-campaign assessment
We conduct pre-campaign assessments for individuals considering public office, so the decision to run is made with clear eyes rather than on a hunch or a friend’s encouragement.
The political environment
Who holds the seat, who else is looking at it, how the last few races went, and what the calendar and filing rules require.
Potential constituencies
Where a candidate’s natural support lives, which communities would need to be earned, and who the credible validators are.
Organizational requirements
What it would take in people, money, time and family commitment, and what the candidate would have to build from scratch.
The assessment ends with the strategic considerations of a prospective candidacy laid out plainly. Sometimes the right answer is “not this seat, not this year,” and we will say so.
What a campaign draws on
Community Engagement & Coalition Building
Faith, civic and neighborhood relationships; listening sessions; the coalition that becomes the ground game.
Learn more →Executive Communications & Thought Leadership
Candidate communications, speechwriting, spokesperson preparation and public speaking.
Learn more →Brand Positioning & Organizational Storytelling
Campaign storytelling: the narrative that explains why this candidate, why this seat and why now.
Learn more →Tell us about the race, or the one you are weighing
The office, the jurisdiction, where you are in the decision, and what you are unsure about. Conversations about a prospective candidacy stay private.