So you want to work on a political campaign but are confused about what lies ahead of you once you join a campaign.
Working on a political campaign is a financially rewarding job which also helps you in developing important career skills like grassroot mobilization, fundraising, reputation management and team handling. But political campaign staffers also need to work in a stressful environment under tight deadlines and workplace politics.
While working in a political campaign, the specific experience may differ from the type of campaign you are working in and your position in that campaign. For example, a person working on a mayoral campaign will have a different experience compared to someone who has been a part of a presidential campaign.
There are a wide variety of roles in political campaigns, and every role has its own pros and cons. I will get back to more specific roles and their ups and downs later on, first look at the generalized experience of working on a political campaign.
What is it Like to Work on a Political Campaign?
Whenever you decide to sign up to work in a political campaign, expect some of these things (or maybe all) during your journey
1. Be Ready to Sacrifice Your Personal Connections
As a political campaign staff member, always be ready to lose friends and even your close relatives. Politics can be a tough career since you need to make choices that impact your relations.
For example, you are campaigning for a candidate your uncle or some other relative does not like. In such a situation, you can expect frequent arguments with them, which do not always end up peacefully.
2. Expect Frequent Traveling During Campaigning
Political campaign staff members can expect frequent travel based on their role in the campaign. People working on larger campaigns will travel more frequently than others. For the presidential level campaigns, you can get opportunities for inter-state travel, that too for free.
3. Workplace Politics Can Get Tougher in Political Campaigns
While working in political campaigns, always expect to face some in-job politics as well. Your colleagues can try to backstab you to get in the good books of the candidates if need be.
But workplace politics is usually the case in every job, isn’t it? It’s just that political campaigners know the drills of workplace politics better than others.
4. Working with Some Candidates Can Hurt Your Career
If you are not planning to work a long time in politics, getting a short time gig can also be a risky thing. This is because many employees will not prefer you if you have a political background or you remain associated with some specific candidates.
While there is no legal room for discrimination in employment, I have seen many people facing trouble in their careers after working in political campaigns.
But this does not mean that you should not work on campaigns. It’s just that you should select your candidates wisely and not work for extremist candidates.
5. Working Overtime in Political Campaigns
Working around the clock can be common in political campaigns, especially near the election season. So before joining any political campaign, you should know that you may end up working in the evenings and even on weekends.
But this is not always true. Most often, you will see campaign staffers busy near elections since this is the time to start intense targeting of voters. Otherwise, you can expect to work only on workdays in the normal working hours.
6. Financial Rewards of Working on a Political Campaign
Politicians don’t hesitate to spend top dollar to get elected to office. So, you can easily get lucrative benefits while working on political campaigns.
According to Zip Recruiter, the average salary of a political campaign staff member is $42,776 per year in the United States, which is roughly equal to $21/hour.
While these numbers might not be impressive financially, things get better when you are associated with bigger campaigns.
Take a look at the presidential campaign’s salaries now.
Here is the campaign salary for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign:
| Staffer | Campaign Role | Yearly Payout |
| Amanda Renteria | Political Director | $114,048 |
| Jennifer Palmieri | Communications Director | $131,000 |
| Robby Mook | Campaign Manager | $121,000 |
Look at the salary data of Trump’s 2016 campaign now:
| Campaign staffers | Positions | Salaries |
| Kellyanne Conway | Political Director | $240,000 |
| Brian Fallon | Press Secretary | $93,000 |
| Jenna Lowenstein | Digital Director | $92,000 |
| Marisa McAuliffe | Operations Director | $85,000 |
Average salary of a field employee on a Clinton campaign $43,542.72
And now look at Trump, who paid this much salaries in the below mentioned consulting departments for his 2016 campaign.
| Consultants Expertise | Cumulative money spent on these consultants |
| Research Consultant | $300,000 |
| Administrative | $300,000 |
| Fundraising | $700,000 |
| Communications | $900,000 |
| Compliance | $900,000 |
| Ballot Access Consulting | $1,500,000 |
| Event | $1,700,000 |
| Strategy | $1,700,000 |
| Legal | $2,900,000 |
| Field | $5,100,000 |
Have a look at the experience of various people who have worked in different types of campaign roles.
Now, as promised, this is what it looks like to work on a political campaign in more specified roles.
What is it Like To Work as a Campaign Manager on Political Campaigns
Working in a full-fledged presidential campaign as a campaign manager is a demanding task. In such a position, you are entitled to great responsibilities and your single decision can make or break the whole campaign.
Take this situation.
Your candidate is facing a reputation crisis, and the rival candidate is launching an offensive smear campaign against them. As a campaign manager, you will need to direct your important resources towards tackling that smear campaign. If you don’t do that immediately, your candidate can lose voters immediately.
What is it Like to Work as a Communications Director in a Political Campaign?
As a communications director of a big political campaign, you will need to interact with the media frequently and craft a successful public relations strategy to impress voters.
Let’s admit it: Mass media play a critical role in shaping the perception of voters about political campaigns. And when campaigns are not making a workable communications strategy, they end up losing voters.
This is why a communications director is such an important position in any political campaign. Working in this role is always challenging since you need to constantly keep an eye on the current developments of a political campaign. You will find yourself in a situation where you will need to change your media strategy to tackle an immediate reputation crisis.
Let’s say your opposite candidate has done a press conference to tarnish your candidate’s reputation. As a communications director, you will immediately need to take notes and arrange a counter press briefing or issue some kind of statement.
Advantages of Working as a Communication Director in Political Campaign
But working as a communication director has its own advantages as well.
- Firstly, you will end up making good relations in the media which will help you down the road in your career. These connections in the media can also help you in getting roles as guest speakers on different news outlets. Having good relations in the media is the primary reason why many campaign strategists switch up their careers and join the media industry after leaving their campaign role.
- Secondly, you will end up getting crisis communication skills after your role as a communication director in any campaign.
- As the head of the communications team, you will also be responsible for leading a big media team that is busy improving the standing of your candidate. Among this team, you will find both traditional media and digital media strategists who will be the experts in their domains. So you will be dealing with media strategists of all types during your job in the political campaign.
Working as a Volunteer in a Political Campaign
Volunteers are a valuable asset in any political campaign. They can easily turn the tide in favor of a campaign if they are used in the right manner.
I have written a complete article on the benefits of volunteering in political campaigns here, in case you need to know.
Campaign volunteers can be adjusted in various types of tasks based on the needs of the campaign.
Cliff Poetz, an icon of the Minnesota disabled community, described his experience of working in a political campaign. He said that he was utilized for filling envelopes, doing door to door canvassing, and attending rallies as a volunteer of Paul Wellstone senatorial campaign. Poetz recommended everyone to participate in campaign volunteering since he believes that politicians consider volunteers as the expert of their domain. Once you call politicians after doing volunteership for their campaign, they regard your opinion.
Downsides of Working as a Campaign Volunteer
But working as a campaign volunteer also comes with some downsides. For example, you will be working for free as a campaign volunteer.
Secondly, you may not get a chance to involve too much in the campaign since most campaigns only use volunteers for not-so-important tasks. But at the same time, being a volunteer is also not as hectic a job as other campaign positions.
Working as a Field Organizer in a Political Campaign
Field organizing can be the busiest role in any political campaign. These are the people who are directly controlling both volunteers and their campaign staffers, which are working on the field in the political campaign.
Challenges Faced by Field Organizers
As a field organizer, you can expect to find these challenges during your campaign work.
Time Management can Leave Field Organizers Burned Out
Managing time can be a tricky task for you since you need to keep track of various activities simultaneously. Field organizers often need to work long hours to meet voter outreach and engagement targets. Some field organizers have even reported working for 65+ hours per week near the elections.
Keeping Track of Critical Campaign Resources
Field managers also need to keep track of the campaign resources. When a lot of campaign staff is working for you, you will be entrusted with important resources. This means that you need to allocate the resources as per the need of the campaign and craft emergency strategies if need be to use those resources in a better way. These resources include both financial and human resources.
Need for Effective Communication as a Field Organizer
You must be an efficient communicator as a field organizer of a political campaign, as you will be leading a big group of people. You must specify the goals and deadlines efficiently to your workforce to meet voter outreach targets.
Stressful Environment Can be Common for Field Organizers
Being a field organizer is no easy job. Sometimes things can get south on you, which can push you under severe stress. All your tactics for voter engagements are failing, and you are unable to convert people into voters for your candidate.
Here is the truth: Sometimes, your candidate is responsible for losing voters due to their unfriendly policies, but you end up getting all the blame for losing voters.
This means that you end up getting undue blame for the things you never did.
Benefits of Working as a Political Field Organizer
But working as a field organizer on a political campaign has its own charms as:
- You make good and valuable connections along the way, which helps you in your career further.
- You get invaluable communication and people management skills since you are dealing with hundreds of volunteers and campaign staffers every day.
- You become well aware of mass mobilization tactics, which is the most important part of any grassroots campaign. As a result of this skill, you can be well aware of the tactics needed to influence people.
- You will also be able to be an opinion leader in many senses since you know the psychology of convincing people after working as a political field organizer.
How is it Like To Work as a Political Fundraiser
Money is, unarguably, the backbone of all political campaigns. Since big money is involved in politics, all campaigns surely focus on amassing big money to influence voters.
This means that people who bring this money to politicians are dearest to them. Working as a campaign fundraising strategist always plays a critical role in the campaigns. But these people have their own challenges.
For instance, the campaign can enter a dead-end tunnel if the fundraiser is not doing their job properly. As a result of this, the whole campaign can malfunction, which eventually puts all the pressure on the fundraiser.
So a political fundraiser can be a stressful job. However, if you work as a fundraiser, you will know how to convince people to take action since bringing money out of people’s pockets is not an easy job.
Final Thoughts
Working on a political campaign is like an unparalleled experience which can teach you many invaluable skills along the journey. But you will only enjoy your work in political campaigns if you choose the right type of campaign. Choosing the right campaign is specifically important for volunteers as they are unpaid people and must join only those campaigns that teach them important skills along the way. This is why I have written a whole post on how to volunteer for political campaigns so you don’t get lost amid all the chaos.
