A frustrating time for campaigners • The strategist: “Destroy, defend, define”
Per Schlingmann is a writer and strategist with a background in the Moderate Party and has been involved in several political campaigns. He believes that the last shaky days before the election are the hardest of all.
– What you can do is keep knocking on doors, you can keep running your radio jingles – but just as a campaigner, time is running out for when you can’t plan for new things anymore, he says in episode nine of TV4 Talk – The US election .
– And right now you are there – you just have to feed all the way in until the polling stations close.
“Destroy, defend, define”
A democratic campaign strategist has said that the last time before the election is about “destroy, defend, define”, i.e. “destroy, defend, define”.
“What can actually break through right now?” asks Jenny Strömstedt in the program and wonders if anyone is even listening to the facts in the last days leading up to election day.
Per Schlingmann fits Jenny’s question.
– There are seven days left, how do you get through? I think the way you get through that is knocking on doors, selling radio ads, putting up signs in the garden – being very present locally where people live.
“A choice between Trump, Harris and the sofa cover”
Knocking on doors and influencing people in the local area is what is called “the ground game”.
– If you have a good “ground game” and can get the people who support your party to vote, it makes a difference, says a democratic door knocker and explains that in Georgia there were about ten thousand votes in the 2020 election.
Getting people to go and vote is absolutely central, according to Schlingmann. In addition to door-knocking and radio advertising, it can even involve helping people get to the polling station.
– This is something Swedish parties have also learned from. To be present all the way to the finish line when people decide.
– This is an election between Trump, Harris and the sofa cover. Voting is hard and complicated in the US and in the worst case you have to queue for several hours, adds US expert Andreas Utterström.
Advantage for the Democrats
Meeting a human being of flesh and blood can be absolutely decisive for the outcome of the election, precisely because Americans are so skeptical of the media, explains Per Schlingmann.
– I think the Democrats have an advantage, especially when it comes to “ground work”.
– The Harris campaign has more money than Trump and more volunteers, he adds.