Sunday, December 8, 2024
Did you know that over the past ten years, 90% of incumbent U.S. congressmen won reelection? It’s indeed hard to go against an incumbent and, to add to that, not every challenger is equal. High quality challengers have awareness, funding, and campaign experience.
I have worked for famous athletes, actors, and beauty queens turned politicians, and can confirm from my own experience that high awareness is a tremendous advantage. It does not guarantee victory, but it attracts an amount of media attention that a conventional candidate can only dream of.
High quality challengers occasionally self-fund their own campaigns. Thaksin Shinawatra from Thailand or Silvio Berlusconi from Italy come to mind. There are also billionaires who lost elections, but the ability to sign a check gives important freedom. A candidate that is not able (or willing) to self-fund his campaign has to make up for it by fundraising capability.
That said, money cannot buy political experience, including the experience of previously having run for office. Candidates who have already run and won an election enjoy the benefit of having a campaign team, or at least elements of one. They also have an inkling of the issues that will be raised against them and of what they should prepare for. Newcomers to politics often think wrongly that everyone who has common sense can run for office and many underestimate the brutality of a high-profile race. My assessment is therefore clear: the best challengers run for local or statewide office, win reelection overwhelmingly, and then try to climb the ladder.
For more on this topic and a framework on how you can rate your own challenger quality, watch the latest edition of The Campaign Doctor.
Dr. Perron has been featured on C-SPAN, Newsweek, USA Today, RealClearPolitics and many others. For more information, or to schedule an interview with Dr. Louis Perron, please contact Kevin McVicker at Shirley & McVicker Public Affairs at (703) 739-5920 or kmcvicker@shirleyandmcvicker.com.