Municipal candidates are entering the last stretch of their campaigns as election day looms less than a week away. Voter engagement in these local elections is paramount but historically apathetic, providing a challenge to city candidates who do not typically fundraise oodles of cash.

Utah’s 2021 municipal election campaigns have proven to be no less difficult. And the added novelty of Rank Choice Voting, adopted for practice by some cities, has increased the level of complexity for candidates who often are navigating the demands of the election season for the first time themselves.

“Experienced and first-time candidates know that elections are hard, regardless of who you are or how much support you think you have,” said Matt Lusty of Election Hive. “The adversarial nature of elections combined with a host of strategic and logistical necessities make for a nearly impossible task alone.” Limited campaign resources joined in confluence with generally low voter turnout confronts candidates with a formidable problem.

CHALLENGES CONFRONTING MUNICIPAL CANDIDATES 

Lusty is a partner of Election Hive, a firm of political campaign consultants started three years ago. They have successfully run races across Utah from Congressman Blake Moore’s campaign to dozens of legislative seats and a host of local municipal campaigns this year. They are seeking to provide their municipal clients with access to the same brain trust and creativity that a statewide campaign would utilize. “Campaigns are changing. Voters’ attentions are fractured and pulled in countless different directions,” Lusty said. “Old-school campaigns just don’t cut it anymore.”

Creativity is the keyword, and so is logistics. “Campaigns are in many ways similar to start-up businesses,” Lusty said with a weary smile on his face. “Think of all the challenges a business has to overcome when they start.”

Marketing research’s Rule of Seven is a reminder to candidates that a prospective voter needs to encounter a candidate’s name or message at least seven times before they will vote for you. This high bar is many times an impossible task if a candidate is just getting their name out there. This might be why municipal elections have such low turn-out.

It’s also why positive name recognition is so important, said Lusty, especially in the resource-poor campaigns of local elections. The incredible challenge of elections tempts many just to “rest on the laurels of their well-known names” rather than confront the challenge head on. Lusty further added that “to bank everything on a client’s well-known name in the community is taking a huge risk. I’ve advised my clients to do all they can to engage with voters.” 

Lusty stresses the point that campaign engagement with voters is really the candidate’s first means of service to their community. “Voter engagement is so important for a host of political and sociological reasons,” he said. “Political dialogue between neighbors is one of the most important conversations that we can have, but they rarely happen spontaneously. Candidates’ campaigns often are the catalyst to sparking conversation between neighbors on important decisions to steer their community in the direction they want.” 

Campaign dialogue between city candidates and voters takes many forms by means of necessity. Utah’s single media market is mostly dominated by national or statewide news. This requires municipal candidates be creative to get their message out to a narrow set of voters.

Election Hive and other campaign consultants have been busy since before the summer primary election evaluating tactics and equipping their clients with the resources needed to reach voters. Social media often takes center stage.

Social media’s effect over the past decade cannot be overstated. Society has adjusted to embrace social media’s potent power to persuade the populace. Elections and campaigns are no different. “Voters have established enormous expectations for candidates. They have to engage on social media,” Lusty said.

Municipal candidates, who often are doing everything by themselves, feel overburdened by these expectations to push out a large amount of quality content, indicative of an effective online campaign. Firms like Election Hive have supplemented these efforts by providing the equipment and consulting needed to publish multiple videos, podcasts, social media posts, and a host of other things.

This year, some of Utah’s municipal candidates appear to be in a mad dash to out produce more content than each other. While this is not unique to campaigns in the Beehive state, this year’s adoption of Rank Choice Voting by some cities has created a torrent of campaign material to voters. 

RANKED CHOICE VOTING’S INTENDED AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

More than 20 Utah cities have adopted Ranked Choice Voting for this year’s municipal elections, including a variety of cities in the Salt Lake Valley from Salt Lake City, to Sandy, Draper and others. This new election form accommodates more voices in that community discussion Lusty mentioned, but when does a bevy of voices become too much for voters to follow?

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) advocates argue that the system incentivizes more civil discussion since candidates want voters’ second and third votes as well. But it’s not clear yet if that promised extra civility has manifested itself in the municipal elections.

The difficultly of gaining traction in an election is heightened when RCV pits dozens of candidates against each other just to get the attention of voters in the general election. For example, Sandy City’s mayoral election consists of eight candidates.

Since RCV eliminates the need for a primary election, this is the first time all candidates have been competing for voters’ attention. Meaning the eight Sandy mayor candidates have held in reserve much of their resources until the three weeks when ballots are in voters’ hands. This has caused a frenzy of spending and a willingness to do whatever might increase voters’ support.  

RCV elections have also proven near impossible to gage how well a candidate is doing. Lusty and others have noted that because RCV allows for voters to express their preference differently, traditional polling is having a hard time forecasting the effectiveness of a candidate’s message. 

As Utah cities continue to hold RCV elections, candidates who learn how to evaluate the best way to use their resources and gauge their effectiveness through new types of polls will have a clear advantage. For a time, this might add another barrier to entry to candidates running and winning municipal elections; a barrier to entry of the complexity and expertise variety.

Some continue to warn that RCV is too complex for the average voter who might be hearing about the system for the first time. For example, a field of candidates all running for more than one city council position might confuse voters on how to fill out their ballots. The fear is that older voters who are used to picking who they want to fill each city council seat might mark multiple candidates as their first preference, thereby invalidating their entire ballot.

Municipal candidates are also concerned about any lack of voter understanding. They have launched their own public education tactics in their campaign literature. This harkens back to Lusty’s point that candidates’ campaigns are the first point of service to the community. Candidates’ public education campaigns on what RCV is and how to participate will prove critical to the success of the system overtime. 

On the other hand, what if eight candidates showed up at your door, all trying to talk over each other in an attempt to persuade you to their side. Would you be more inclined to take time out of your busy day to listen to all of them or will it just encourage you not to participate in the elections at all? Thereby driving down voter turnout.

We will have the answer to that question after the election canvass period in just a few weeks from now.