Campaigning Near The Holidays

“You have to respect things at the voter at this time. They’ve got other thing on their mind. You don’t want to start yelling things at them.”

But as soon as Christmas is over, Troop plans to swing back into full campaign mode. He wants to increase the amount of education funding in the state budget. Troop plans to get that message out in several different ways.

“You try to use social media, because it doesn’t cost as much, try to reach out to and just talk to people, just go to shopping malls and introducing yourself, that kind of thing.”

Another candidate in the race told me he’s also waiting until after Christmas to resume his campaign. Other candidates in the race sent out mailers with Season’s Greetings messages on them.

In general, University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock says campaigning near the holidays isn’t easy.

“We know even that even if this were a much calmer time, most any other time of the year, there would still be low turnout for a special election, so this simply compounds the challenge to get through to those few voters who will actually go to the polls and cast a ballot.”

So how can candidates reach those voters?

“A phone call is better than a mailer, we know evidence of that, and if you could have someone, a volunteer, go and knock on their door that would also be more effective than doing a mailer.”

Bullock says the key is to find a way to target voters who will actually show up at the polls.