Running for county commissioner comes with responsibilities most candidates underestimate — roads, bridges, emergency response, and local budgets. In this video, political consultant Jay Townsend covers what it takes to actually win: knowing the job, building your network, understanding your jurisdiction, crafting your message, advertising it, and funding your campaign.
In this video, we’re going to talk about how to run for county commissioner — and how to actually win the election. There’s something unique about county commissioners, sometimes called county supervisors: their job carries specific, tangible responsibilities. It commonly falls to a county commissioner to maintain the roads, maintain the bridges, fix dangerous intersections, and be involved on emergency response teams when a calamity hits the community.
Make sure you know the power that comes with the office you’re seeking, because voters throughout the campaign will expect you to know it. If you don’t, or if you sound clueless, it will hurt your cause.
How do you develop a network of strong supporters? Start with what you already have — you just need to ask. These are people you already know in your community: family, friends, relatives, people you’ve encountered through church or civic and community organizations, business associates, people you’ve met at parties and later got to know over coffee.
There are three places to look for these people, and you’ll be surprised how many you’ve forgotten. Go through the contact list on your cell phone and look for people in your community you could ask to volunteer or help in some other way. Go through your Facebook friends — you’d be surprised how many people you know that you’d forgotten about. Even a college roommate on the other side of the country who can’t go door to door for you could still send a campaign contribution. Check your LinkedIn connections too, since that’s another rich source of names in your personal network.
Beyond your personal network, there’s a group of stakeholders who care deeply about who becomes county commissioner. First is your political party leadership, who have enormous influence over who gets the nomination and what support a candidate receives heading into the general election. Second are officeholders who belong to your party — they’ve already won office, they know how to win a campaign, and they may have had professional help they can introduce you to. Securing the endorsement of a known, well-regarded political leader is often very helpful.
A third group is the vendors and people who do business with the county or receive part of the county budget — people who sell concrete or supplies, people who pave roads, developers looking for opportunities in your jurisdiction. They’re going to be very interested in your attitudes if you get elected. Civic and community leaders who serve people in need are another group worth courting, and in some jurisdictions, ethnic groups have an outsized say in who wins an election — if there’s a sizable population in your district, the leadership of those communities is a network that needs to be courted if you hope to win.
You really should know your jurisdiction — and I don’t just mean past turnout or partisan affiliation. It’s very difficult to run in this day and age without knowing the demographic profile of the people who live there, the demographic profile of registered voters, and the demographic profile of likely voters. Without that information, you’re flying blind.
What you need to know: age brackets, income levels, race and ethnicity, and education levels of the people who live in your jurisdiction. The more you know about their demographics, the more finely you can tune your social media message to reach them with the specific concerns or problems you can help solve. Done well, that’s a great way to earn votes.
Three more things matter equally here. First: why are you running? If you don’t have an answer, give it real thought — what do you hope to accomplish if elected? What problems will you fix, what inequities will you correct, how will you better maintain the roads, improve emergency response time, or clear snow faster than it’s been cleared in the past? If you can’t answer that question, voters will assume you’re running for the wrong reasons.
That’s just one component of your message. Voters also want to know what qualifies you to hold the office, whether your moral code and values are in sync with theirs, and whether they can trust you to make the right decisions when they’re not looking. A story about a firsthand experience that shows how deeply committed you are to fixing a problem is gold in a political campaign — when voters hear a story like that, they know they can trust you.
The final piece of your campaign message: voters love it when you make the choice easy for them. Why should they choose you over the person you’re running against? The more clarity you provide in the final stages of your campaign, the stronger your message.
Once you’ve built your message, you need to decide how to disseminate it. If you live in a sparsely populated rural area, winning a county commissioner’s race can be as simple as getting in your pickup truck, driving around, saying hello to people, telling them you’re running, and listening to what they’d like you to do.
But if you live in a jurisdiction with a large or densely populated voter base, you’ll need to advertise. Social media — Facebook and YouTube — lets you advertise and target specific audiences. Digital advertising works well, persuasion mail is commonly used, radio is often useful in county commissioner races, and different types of TV — OTT, CTV, cable, and commercial television — are typically used in larger jurisdictions.
Once you’ve figured out the most efficient way to disseminate your message, build a budget that includes not just advertising costs but personnel, campaign headquarters, and the help you need to run your campaign. The last step is a fundraising plan to actually raise that money — a longer, more detailed process covered in a separate video linked in the description, which walks through everything you need to know about how it’s done.
Q: What does a county commissioner actually do?
A: County commissioners, sometimes called county supervisors, are commonly responsible for maintaining roads and bridges, fixing dangerous intersections, and coordinating emergency response during local disasters. Knowing these specific responsibilities is essential before you campaign, since voters expect you to speak knowledgeably about the job.
Q: How do I build a network for a county commissioner campaign?
A: Start with your personal network — phone contacts, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn connections. Then build a second network of party leadership, elected officials in your party, county vendors and contractors, civic and community leaders, and ethnic community leaders where relevant to your district.
Q: What demographic information do I need about my jurisdiction?
A: You need more than past turnout and partisan affiliation. A full demographic profile — age, income, race, ethnicity, and education levels of registered and likely voters — lets you tailor your social media message to the specific concerns of different groups instead of running a one-size-fits-all campaign.
Q: What should my campaign message include?
A: It should clearly explain why you’re running and what you hope to accomplish, establish your qualifications and shared values with voters, include a trust-building personal story, and make the choice between you and your opponent as easy and clear as possible.
Q: Do I need to advertise if I’m running in a small, rural district?
A: Not necessarily. In sparsely populated areas, door-to-door campaigning can be enough to win. But in jurisdictions with large or dense populations, you’ll need a real advertising mix — social media, digital ads, persuasion mail, radio, or TV — backed by a proper budget and fundraising plan.
Jay Townsend has spent more than 40 years advising candidates at every level of American politics. Browse the full library of free campaign resources at JayTownsend.com or subscribe to Jay’s YouTube channel for new videos every week.
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