The first step in developing a winning strategy is a realistic assessment of the political situation in the constituency where a candidate will be running. It is impossible to know everything about a constituency, one’s opponents and the voters. However, by using time wisely and setting clear priorities, a campaign team will be able to gather the kind of information they need to develop a good strategy and be prepared for most events in the coming campaign.
There are a number of factors that should be understood as completely as possible when preparing to write a campaign plan:
- The type of election and the election rules
- The characteristics of the constituency
- The characteristics of the voters
- The features of past elections
- The main factors affecting the election
- The strengths and weaknesses of the campaign’s candidate
- The strengths and weaknesses of all the viable opponents
Each of these points can be expanded into many more questions. The campaign team will know the answers to some questions immediately and others will require some research. In some cases, it may be necessary to take an educated guess about the answer to a particular question, but this should only be done as a last resort.
It is important for the campaign team to take some time to research the answers to as many of these questions as possible. If there is a large, reliable campaign team, they may want to assign different sections to different members of the team. They can then report their findings to the campaign manager who will be responsible for writing the final campaign plan.
Either alone or as a team, it is important that campaign teams decide on a time limit for doing the research, and keep to that time limit. There will always be more information to gather, but spending too much time researching will only delay the use of the information that has already been collected to develop a strategy.
In some cases, this type of research may benefit from more scientific methods of obtaining the data, such as political polling or focus groups. Campaign teams will need to determine what resources are available to them and whether they are worth the expense of time and/or money. In small, local campaigns, paying for a poll could cost as much as the whole campaign and therefore should not be considered. On a larger campaign where a lot of money will be spent on advertising, it would be unwise not to spend some of that amount to see if the message will be effective (NDI 2009: 10).
Aspects of Campaign Research
There are various ways political parties can conduct research: questioning people by phone, face to face or online. Such research, when held before important elections, can help in determining a campaign strategy.
Research can provide political parties with very valuable information that they need to adequately respond to the changing circumstances and preferences of the electorate. Another way to use research is to test how voters will respond to their leader, message, poster, leaflets, etc.
Good research will guard a political party from making certain mistakes by either confirming or disproving the assumptions that a party may have. The decisions that parties (and especially leaders and strategists) make are often crucial for the future of a party or its success in an election. That is why politicians value research: it provides them with more certainty to make better decisions (van den Boomen 2009: 27).
Research Topics
Some important areas that parties will need to research in order to plan an effective campaign include:
Election Rules
It is important to first determine the type of election in which a candidate will be running and what will be the rules of the election. In Myanmar, the answer is straightforward; it is the first-past-the-post system, but it is still necessary to determine the strategy based on the number of candidates and their relative expected strength. A campaign team should definitely research the laws and, if they are complicated, it might be wise for political to distribute a short document outlining the most important points. Missing a deadline or violating some part of the law could end a campaign before it has even begun.
The Constituency
Campaign planners should gather as much information on the constituency and the voters as possible. This includes the size the type of terrain (rivers, jungle, mountains etc.) that campaign staff will have to cover and the type of transportation the campaign staff and the voters will need to use. It is also important for the campaign staff to be aware of whether the population of the constituency changed recently, and in what ways it has changed. For example, campaign team should try and find out if there has been significant migration into or out of the constituency since the last election. This kind of information can sometimes be obtained from local government or from civil society organisations that do research on population or migration.
The campaign team also needs to understand the political situation in which they will be operating. It is important to find out who the important political players in the area are and the popularity of other political parties in the area. The campaign team should be aware of who are the civil society and and business leaders in the constituency and how they might possibly be able to influence the campaign (both positively and negatively). Winning the support of a particularly influential leader in the community can often make the campaign much easier.
The campaign team must understand how voters get their information. This includes developing an awareness of local media, the reporters in the constituency and the deadlines that they need to work to. To develop a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the media, it is important to have as much information on the media as possible.
The Voters
In order to develop an effective strategy, campaign teams need to break the voters in their candidate’s constituency into manageable groups.
It is important for the campaign team to know as much as they can about the voters in order to develop an effective strategy. Important issues the gather research on include the levels of support among the voters for different political parties. It is also important to understand the demographic features of the voters in the constituency. For example, their income levels, education levels, professions, ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, age, gender balance.
Another important area of research is on the geographic distribution of the voters. It is important to know how many people live in cities or towns compared to how many live in the rural areas or in small villages. Campaign teams should also try to find out how many people (on average) live in each house or apartment by talking to local institutions and CSOs or by doing their own research.
Voters with similar characteristics may have similar interests and may tend to vote the same way. For example, older voters will be less interested in schools and more interested in pensions while young mothers will be more interested in schools and less interested in pensions. By determining how many older citizens there are and how many young mothers there are, a campaign team will be better able to target their message to groups that matter to its success.
Past Elections
Campaign teams and party researchers can gain valuable information about an election by looking at information from previous elections. For example, by looking at the results (including which candidates ran in a constituency) in past elections can provide information about what kind of candidates are likely to be successful in an election. Other important information that can be gathered from looking at previous elections include the number of voters that turned out for previous elections and the number votes that was needed to win. By looking at this data, a campaign team might be able to predict the likely voter turnout and levels of support that their party might have in an upcoming election election.
Other important information that can be collected from previous elections includes:
• The success of candidates with similar backgrounds and messages to a party’s current candidate
• The kinds of successes or mistakes that influenced the level of support that candidates received in a constituency.
• The strengths and weaknesses of opponents election campaigns
These questions will help a campaign team measure their likely success in a constituency. This type of information will be useful later when determining what worked in the past and what will have to be done differently to do better than campaign teams in previous elections.
The Coming Election
It is important for a campaign team to consider the various issues that concern voters and the regional or national issues that other political campaigns in the constituency will focus on. A campaign team should develop an understanding of what will motivate voters to go to the polls and the voter’s mood in general.
It is important to consider the other campaigns that will be taking place at the same time. Campaign teams should be aware of other candidates who are competing for the same position and whether these candidates will help or hurt their campaign. For example, if your campaign aims to focus on getting the support of farmers (but your candidate has weak links with farmers in the constituency), but there is another campaign for a candidate who is a well-known farmer’s rights activist. This should be considered when developing a strategy for the area.
Campaign planners should also be aware of other campaigns for other positions. I.e. if a campaign’s candidate is running for the Pyithu Hluttaw, it is important to consider how campaigns (both for candidates in your party and other parties) for other Hluttaws will affect the campaign. Campaign teams should reflect on if there are opportunities to work with other campaigns in a coordinated manner. They should also think about their relationship with their party and other candidates in the constituency will affect their strategy. It is important that the campaign’s message should not contradict messages of other campaigns for candidates from the same party.
The Candidate
The most important factor in an election will be the candidate. During a campaigns strategic planning phase, the campaign team should honestly and openly judge the strengths and weaknesses of their candidate. As they do this, they should also look at their candidate from the point of view of their opponent.
Campaign teams often organize their assessment into various sections, such as the candidate’s education, work history, immediate family, personal convictions, party support, name recognition and past political positions.
It is important to look for both strengths and weaknesses in all of these areas. By finding weaknesses early, the campaign will be better prepared to deal with them and respond to charges that may come up later in the campaign.
Opponents
Campaign teams should repeat the process of examining the strengths and weaknesses of their candidate with their opponents. If they are facing several opponents, they should determine which ones are their strongest competitors for the loyalty of voters they hope to attract. Again, they can organize their assessment into various sections and look for both strengths and weaknesses. Campaign teams will probably need to do some research to find reasons for voters to vote against their opponents and for their candidate.
As they gather their opposition research, they must be extremely well organized: list the sources of documentation, and have a system in place that will allow campaign staff to quickly access the information. It will do no good to know something and not be able to provide backup of the information. All of this research should be gathered together in a binder for easy referral and referenced for easy tracking. Being well organized in the preparation stages will save a lot of time and energy later (NDI 2009: 11-12).
Collecting Information
There are different ways to collect the information during the campaign research phase.
These include:
• Official sources
• Community meetings
• Your own research
Official Sources
Official sources can be useful, but they are not the only sources that can provide good information. Finding other sources of useful data in the community requires creativity.
Such sources might include:
• Schools can provide enrolment figures and gender breakdowns
• Hospitals and clinics can provide details of admissions and statistics of major health problems
• Local police can provide crime statistics
• Township or ward/village tract administrators can provide development plans, payment levels for services, population details
• NGOs in the area may have their own studies that contain useful data
• Journalists
• Community leaders
Community Meetings
A meeting that focuses on a particular issue or problem gives the residents an opportunity to express their views. It is important to remember that it often is only the most active and mobilized people that will come and they may not necessarily represent the majority view. Therefore community meetings should be complemented by other information (OPIC 2012: 34).
Campaign Research Methods
Surveys
When campaign planners do their own research, the questions must be listed and people must be asked the same questions so that their answers can be compared systematically. This is called a survey. To go door-to-door is time consuming but it often gives very good and accurate insight into what people really feel and what their attitudes and needs actually are.
Opinion Polls
Once a campaign team has decided who will conduct the research, they start with a baseline measurement. This is a regular opinion poll in which a number of respondents are asked a large number of questions (either in person or by phone). This is to find out the current situation among the voters in a constituency. Key questions include:
• How do people feel about important issues?
• How is your party doing?
• How are your opponents doing?
• How do people think about your party leader and the other parties’ leaders?
Campaign planners thus gain a clearer picture of the context in which the elections will take place. Also ask people how they are planning to vote, and try to find out how high the chance is that they will vote for their party. This enables them to discover who their core supporters are and who are the voters that they might be able to persuade to vote for them are. This baseline measurement will be the basis for all further surveys. In subsequent surveys any new data will be compared to the baseline date, this will allow the campaign staff to see what has changed and investigate why that is. A reliable baseline measurement needs about 1,000 respondents, but the more the better. If a campaign team wants to specify the results according to target groups, then they need at least some 2,000 – but of course the budget has to allow for this. An interview should not take longer than about 20 minutes. This should be taken into account when drawing up the questionnaire. Also campaign planners should remember that they will have to visit or phone many more people than the 1,000 respondents that they will eventually need (van den Boomen 2009: 29).
Focus Groups
The information provided by a baseline measurement can be used for further research, for instance with focus groups. This is a relatively inexpensive type of research. A focus group is a group of about 10 people having a two-hour long discussion about different topics, chaired by a researcher. Campaign staff can also have them fill in questionnaires. The main advantage of focus groups is the fruitful communication between chairman and participants and between participants themselves. It often yields useful information as input for further quantitative research (like opinion polls).
The focus group is observed by other party members – at least the campaign member in charge of research, but preferably also the campaign manager, who will have to implement the results of the research. The discussion in the room is recorded by one or more video cameras. The chairman’s role in the discussion is important, not unlike that of the chairman at a meeting. He has to keep the conversation going, keep an eye on the script and be alert to raise the right questions. He also has to maintain strict neutrality in the discussion.
All in all, a focus group requires thorough preparation. Close attention has to be paid to the following aspects:
The Choice of Participants
Campaign staff should pick the right people to find answers to the questions that are important to the campaign. Usually they will be people from a specific target group, e.g. voters who are hesitating between voting for the campaign team’s party or for another party, or people who voted for the campaign team’s party at the last elections but intend to vote for another party this time. The campaign team may want to select people from specific target groups, like elderly people, students, young parents or people with a particular ethnic background.
The Chairperson
Appoint a skilled chairperson, with whom the session is prepared in great detail. It is important that the chairman is fully aware of the kind of information the party is after. The chairperson should explain the purpose of the research is, that the data are gathered anonymously and that other people are watching the debate. They should emphasize that there are no “right” or “wrong” answers to the questions, that it is important that they really say what they think. Chairpersons should make sure that they do not pose leading questions. Do not ask: “Don’t you think our country is in a bad situation?” But instead: “What do you think of the situation of our nation?” The chairperson should be someone who knows when to ask the right question, who can smoothly focus from more general issues (like “safety in our country”) to the micro level of personal experience (“Are you afraid to go out after dark?”). The chairman also has to be able to redress the balance between people who are too dominant in the conversation and those who are so timid they hardly make themselves heard.
The Script
Write a good script enabling the chairman to pose all the questions the party wants to have answered. The script should contain a minute-by-minute treatment of what is to be discussed. This does not mean the discussion cannot deviate from the script. The chairman can announce a break or give the participants some questionnaires to fill in if he wants to consult with the observers. Or they can use their mobile phone to have the observers text them with instructions.
The Questionnaires
Thoroughly prepare the questionnaires. The participants are usually given questionnaires before, during and after the discussion, to gather additional data. These may contain questions about their political preferences, but they may also be used to test slogans and messages.
The campaign team members responsible for organising focus groups should determine in advance how much information they want to share with the participants. For example, they should make it clear who is organising this research and for what purpose. It is important that members of the focus group volunteer to participate on the strict condition that the results are kept anonymous. Remarks made during the discussion should never be traceable to individuals (van den Boomen 2009: 30-31).