This is incredibly interesting. Mirrors my experience. 4 years of hard work in one state, and moved on due to low pay and starting by a family. Still involved on the periphery but no longer source of income. Thanks for writing!
Unfortunately the realities are evident in my line of work too. The Institutional memory collapse combined with digital burnout make these campaigns sitting ducks with no real defense against information manipulation. Opponents have figured this out.
These posts are such a valuable public service. To have the numbers to confirm that as bad as it was in the late 80s and 90s when I did 17 elections in 14 states, it’s even worse now for people dedicated or foolish enough to go on the road campaigning.
At one point, my mother expressed concern that I was unemployed again in November, but I told her not to worry I had no problem getting jobs, I’d already had more jobs than most people have in a lifetime.
In the 80s and 90s NDs governor and entire ND delegation was Ds because they had a great state party which all the elected dedicated significant energy to keeping strong.
Interesting about the export of talent. VT is home to Sanders operation which is incredible. VA (where you got your start) and KY as well as NJ have odd numbered year state elections making them among the few places with campaigns in the off season. So they are getting folks coming off Presidentials from NH and VT.
The only thing that has improved for some campaign workers is health insurance. We had the “Campaign Workers Health Plan”— “Don’t get sick. That’s the plan”
Starting salary was $1,000 per month and with inflation has gone down!
The problem is not enough money in politics. If only campaigns were raising millions of $ (lol).
Jordan— is per engagement the amount recorded for a check to that person in the FEC report? That would make it most likely either monthly or bimonthly salary— correct?
Roger- it is total engagement; however it includes field staff which bring down the average. There’s no way to pull them apart, so we look at the average change including all the noise at the bottom. For other CM analysis, I cut off the min engagement at $15k to clear that out.
It strikes me that a problem with campaign management is that the pipeline comes from field operations.
The ability to craft good campaign strategy is not necessarily correlated with comfort in, or the ability to succeed at, field operations! I would say the correlation is close to zero, in my experience.
Campaigns should be interviewing candidates to see what their actual ideas are, and take fliers on people who are willing to try novel things, particularly in “unwinnable” districts where playing around doesn’t cost you much. Not going to the local party and saying “so who is your best fundraiser on the phone?”
It’s like if you required baseball managers to be have been Major League All-Stars. Like, an MLB All-Star is certainly more likely to be a good manager than your average person, but plenty are terrible managers, like Ted Williams, and plenty of guys who never made it out of the minor leagues are amazing at it, like Buck Showalter. It’s just not the same skill set, so treating one as prerequisite to the other makes no sense.
Miles, I think you overestimate the strategic role of a campaign manager. Most of the job is execution and problem solving. Message and strategy tend to end up with consultants. My first campaign job was in 1998. When I told the boss I wanted to do strategic work, he handed me a box of letters and envelopes and asked me to strategize the fastest way to stuff them.
What are the routes people usually take into consulting? (Not that I’m interested - it’s cool work but I already have a career.) Poli sci programs? Taking a pay cut to shift over from business? Probably, sometimes, from the more logistical side of campaigns?
It is interesting to note that in terms of ground operations the MAGA machine has appeared really, really ineffective; it’s tempting to say from that “field ops don’t matter” but the fact is that we see that lack of infrastructure biting Republicans in every race that doesn’t have Trump as a unique draw.
Edit: I also do not want to discount that people who are experienced in field operations DO have an advantage in having spent so much time interfacing with voters, much like you can count on a former star player knowing his way around the diamond, on a “mechanical” level, as a manager.
Virginia Republicans outknocked Democrats (at least in delegate races in my area) this fall and still lost partially due to low GOP turnout because of what Trump has done to the GOP base. On the Republican side, I would argue Trump is a reason for burnout—few things are more disheartening than working on a campaign in 2017 and managing an impeccable campaign in 2025 when your party gets blown into outer space because the person in the White House happens to share the same party label. We had many of those in Virginia. Several have already left politics in the past few weeks after losing their legislative aide jobs.
Amen on the death of State parties. That worries me a lot.
This is incredibly interesting. Mirrors my experience. 4 years of hard work in one state, and moved on due to low pay and starting by a family. Still involved on the periphery but no longer source of income. Thanks for writing!
Fantastic post.
Unfortunately the realities are evident in my line of work too. The Institutional memory collapse combined with digital burnout make these campaigns sitting ducks with no real defense against information manipulation. Opponents have figured this out.
Thank goodness for risks in 1999. It’s what forged our friendship!
These posts are such a valuable public service. To have the numbers to confirm that as bad as it was in the late 80s and 90s when I did 17 elections in 14 states, it’s even worse now for people dedicated or foolish enough to go on the road campaigning.
At one point, my mother expressed concern that I was unemployed again in November, but I told her not to worry I had no problem getting jobs, I’d already had more jobs than most people have in a lifetime.
In the 80s and 90s NDs governor and entire ND delegation was Ds because they had a great state party which all the elected dedicated significant energy to keeping strong.
Interesting about the export of talent. VT is home to Sanders operation which is incredible. VA (where you got your start) and KY as well as NJ have odd numbered year state elections making them among the few places with campaigns in the off season. So they are getting folks coming off Presidentials from NH and VT.
The only thing that has improved for some campaign workers is health insurance. We had the “Campaign Workers Health Plan”— “Don’t get sick. That’s the plan”
Starting salary was $1,000 per month and with inflation has gone down!
The problem is not enough money in politics. If only campaigns were raising millions of $ (lol).
Jordan— is per engagement the amount recorded for a check to that person in the FEC report? That would make it most likely either monthly or bimonthly salary— correct?
Roger- it is total engagement; however it includes field staff which bring down the average. There’s no way to pull them apart, so we look at the average change including all the noise at the bottom. For other CM analysis, I cut off the min engagement at $15k to clear that out.
This is such an interesting read and resonates across the globe! Thanks for sharing from a political staffer in Australia
Thank you Eloise!
It strikes me that a problem with campaign management is that the pipeline comes from field operations.
The ability to craft good campaign strategy is not necessarily correlated with comfort in, or the ability to succeed at, field operations! I would say the correlation is close to zero, in my experience.
Campaigns should be interviewing candidates to see what their actual ideas are, and take fliers on people who are willing to try novel things, particularly in “unwinnable” districts where playing around doesn’t cost you much. Not going to the local party and saying “so who is your best fundraiser on the phone?”
It’s like if you required baseball managers to be have been Major League All-Stars. Like, an MLB All-Star is certainly more likely to be a good manager than your average person, but plenty are terrible managers, like Ted Williams, and plenty of guys who never made it out of the minor leagues are amazing at it, like Buck Showalter. It’s just not the same skill set, so treating one as prerequisite to the other makes no sense.
That is a great question. I plan to spend most of 2026 writing about it. Subscribe!
Subscribed! (Thanks for reminding me - I always forget to hit the button.)
Miles, I think you overestimate the strategic role of a campaign manager. Most of the job is execution and problem solving. Message and strategy tend to end up with consultants. My first campaign job was in 1998. When I told the boss I wanted to do strategic work, he handed me a box of letters and envelopes and asked me to strategize the fastest way to stuff them.
That makes sense.
What are the routes people usually take into consulting? (Not that I’m interested - it’s cool work but I already have a career.) Poli sci programs? Taking a pay cut to shift over from business? Probably, sometimes, from the more logistical side of campaigns?
It is interesting to note that in terms of ground operations the MAGA machine has appeared really, really ineffective; it’s tempting to say from that “field ops don’t matter” but the fact is that we see that lack of infrastructure biting Republicans in every race that doesn’t have Trump as a unique draw.
Edit: I also do not want to discount that people who are experienced in field operations DO have an advantage in having spent so much time interfacing with voters, much like you can count on a former star player knowing his way around the diamond, on a “mechanical” level, as a manager.
Virginia Republicans outknocked Democrats (at least in delegate races in my area) this fall and still lost partially due to low GOP turnout because of what Trump has done to the GOP base. On the Republican side, I would argue Trump is a reason for burnout—few things are more disheartening than working on a campaign in 2017 and managing an impeccable campaign in 2025 when your party gets blown into outer space because the person in the White House happens to share the same party label. We had many of those in Virginia. Several have already left politics in the past few weeks after losing their legislative aide jobs.
Out of curiosity, where did you get the tenure and compensation data? Very interesting to see this together. I hadn't seen this cut before.
Will DM you