Now What?

Your campaign is over. If you won, you are working to hire staff, creating an agenda and preparing to govern. If you didn’t win, you are trying to process your loss. But win or lose, you are likely to need the support of the people and groups that endorsed, donated or volunteered on your campaign.

Here is my advice:

Take time off. Don’t try to work on a light schedule, shut down. Take a full week off, reconnect with your family, catch up on sleep and take care of your health. Then come back focused and ready to work.

But… Before you take time off, take down your signs. No one wants to see your signs competing with Christmas decorations. Most of the printed material should be recycled, but those metal hangers your campaign bought are expensive and can be reused.

Consolidate, back up and clean up your data. Even the best campaigns have data spread across platforms. Now is the time to put it all into proper place. This includes the information on your cell phone, your field staff’s phones, your ID data and all of your donor data.

Come up with a plan for managing your data and as part of this plan you must know where everything is kept and all of the passwords. This includes all the social media platforms. Campaign staff and volunteers come and go, but this is your career and data is valuable.

Create an archive of photos and videos, you will need those again.

Thank everyone! And when you are done thanking them, do it again. With the pandemic, we can’t have parties, but get creative and have Zoom thank you events. Or just go old-school and call people. It is not a real “Thank You” if it is not made in person. Email and texts don’t count.

Get a grip on your campaign finances. Our recommendation is to pay-off any outstanding bills and close your campaign account as quickly as possible. Compliance is expensive and keeping a committee open will just compile more costs.

Learn the rules. Once elected you will face a new set of legal and ethical rules. It is important to learn them and live by them. It is price of public service. Not knowing the rules is not an excuse.

Stay in touch. Make a plan to stay in touch with your supporters, but remember political and constituent communications should stay separate. Now is the time to begin developing staff and creating a culture of responsiveness. 

Winning or losing a campaign is not the end. It is the beginning or the next stage in your career.