Data and demographics are central to the modern political campaign. What this means is that the modern campaign is data driven. And that data is predominately demographics in nature. A data driven campaign seeks to optimize the allocation of resources, whether that resource is candidate time, volunteers, or money. In short, the campaign wants to prioritize efforts that yield the greatest result.

The link between the campaign and voter demographics is this. The first step in achieving the candidate’s political goals is winning the campaign. There is no second place. There is no seat at the table without the win. The difference between winning and losing in a competitive race ultimately hinges on the message.  And a winning message is both aligned with the principles of the candidate and resonates with a majority of voters. For many races, crafting that message begins with an understanding of voter demographics.

The candidate, however, is running their race in the backyard of one or more of their party’s organizations. Although there are many points of view on the role of a party organization, a part of that role could be contributing to the development of the candidate’s understanding of demographics at the county and district level. In the end, a party organization wants to make a difference. Its members want to be part of something bigger than themselves.  One particularly important way to make that difference is to support candidates that seek to better understand the demographic landscape of their district or county.

A party organization is well positioned to provide that support by developing an expertise in local demographics and the messages that resonate with local voters. They are part of the community. They persist across election cycles. Specifically, a party organization can be instrumental in developing and maintaining a sharable demographics toolkit. Every candidate will need this toolkit and duplicating that development effort across multiple campaigns is needlessly wasteful of scarce candidate resources.

Of course, a party organization that takes this path will share responsibility for both wins and losses, more so than they typically do now. There will also be consequences to being sloppy or indifferent when building a demographic toolkit. Moreover, a party organization needs to show no favoritism during a primary. Even so, a well crafted demographics toolkit will favor candidates aligned with the voters in the organization’s backyard and will be unhelpful to the candidate that insists on remaining out of touch.

Developing a demographics toolkit is not a trivial task. Fortunately, Georgia Election Lore ’24 is the essential guide to voter demographics at the state, county and district level. It will help the candidate and party organization jumpstart toolkit development. Lore ’24 will also assist both in formulating deeper questions whose answers will be the key to tailoring their demographics toolkit to the aspirations, priorities, and concerns of a winning voter coalition.