Assignment Task

1. Campaign Details 

Campaign for which party/independent. If indi, say who exactly. If a party, this is not vital but you can suggest someone if you want, or you suggest whoever it is they should be a candidate with some particular qualities.

2. Target Seat Profile 

Introduce the reader to the seat — its geography, demographics (make use of ABS seat profiles), maybe a bit about the key industries if relevant, recent political history and its place in the wider national/parliamentary context (has it been a focus of prior campaigns?). You can mention the 2022 election, but save actual analysis of that campaign for later.

3. Competition

Introduce us to the incumbent you are challenging. Tell us if there are reasons to think they won’t be re-contesting, otherwise assume they are. Tell us about other likely competition too, provided they are going to be actually significant to the outcome (this might include parties whose preferences will be important). Explain the levels of support you think your opponents have – make use of election results, polling and other information.

4. Lessons from 2022

Explain what went right and wrong in 2022, and how this strategy learns from that. This could be broader lessons from the country-at-large, or perhaps from similar seats.

5. Target Voters 

First, tell us how many new votes you expect you’ll need to win. We want the swing you’ll need (as a % of the 2pp vote), and the raw number of new votes you’ll need. List these, with citations attached, like:

There are simple formulas you can follow to get these numbers IF your candidate/party came second last election:

To work out swing:

Take the winner’s two-party preferred % result from 2022 and subtract 50.

To work out the # of votes:

1. Find the two-party-preferred raw vote totals for 2022 in your seat.
2. Subtract the loser total from the winner total to find the gap.
3. Divide the gap by two to get the raw # of votes needed to win.

If your party did NOT come second, you’ll need to estimate the gap another way. Ask your tutor or me, Jim.

Next, explain ‘where’ you want to get the new votes from. Maybe some can come in the form of preferences, but you’ll likely need a lot of new primary votes.

Either way you’ll need to explain what kinds of voters you’ll target to switch towards your candidate. You can segment the vote in a range of ways. You might identify groups based on geography, demographics, party affiliation, policy preferences, whatever. It is likely to be some kind of mixture of groups — we call this a voter coalition.

Note: ‘Everyone’ or ‘all swing voters’ are not good answers. Be nice and specific.

6. Core Tactics

Tell us how you will reach your target voters. You are likely to suggest multiple tactics – explain each individually. If I were you, I’d try to limit the tactics to maybe two or three core Be mindful of how resource-intensive your tactics are: are they plausible for your candidate/party? Address the following:

1. What is the tactic? Give us the specifics.
2. Who are you targeting (which voter segment[s]), and who is carrying it out (the candidate personally; volunteers; paid third parties?)
3. Where, specifically, will the tactic be rolled out? Which neighborhoods, which areas, which realms of cyberspace? Be as specific as you can.
4. When will you start and end the tactic? Think about i.) what conditions need to be in place for you to start and ii.) when, during the campaign, your tactic will have the most impact.
5. Why is this tactic a good match for your target group(s), and your candidate/party?

7. Key Messages

Explain one or two key messages your campaign will rely on when trying to persuade target voters. For each message, tell us:

1. The message — give us the theme, any policies that might be attached to the theme, and examples of actual lines that might be used
2. The target audience — line it up with one of your target groups
3. Intended effect — what is your message supposed to do for its audience and your campaign?