Patrick Ruffini is a co-founder of Echelon Insights, a Republican research and analytics firm.

Snuffing out Donald Trump’s candidacy may lower the rest of the Republican field’s chances of beating Hillary Clinton. To bring Trump down a peg, the field is likely to double down on strategies—like heavy spending on negative TV ads—that may win the primary but simply won’t work as well in November. Democrats, meanwhile, are busy building a vast organization to replicate President Obama’s data-and-field driven juggernaut and take it even further.

In 2012, both sides in the general election invested enough on television, but only one side invested enough in registering and turning out the vote. The Obama campaign registered 3 million voters (a good chunk of its national popular vote margin), and had 3,000 full-time organizers on payroll whose mission was to “organize themselves out of a job.” This meant that staffers were explicitly told not to call voters and knock on doors, and instead focus exclusively on recruiting a massive volunteer army who could do the job instead. This process of “capacity building,” as it was referred to internally (and documented extensively in Elizabeth McKenna and Hahrie Han’s academic book, Groundbreakers), allowed the Obama campaign to scale its operations an order of magnitude beyond the Romney campaign. On Election Day, the president over-performed the final polling averages by 3 points, a possible indicator that his turnout operation had done the trick.


This legacy influences the party’s 2016 hopefuls today. According to Democracy in Action, a website that uses Federal Election Committee data and press reports to track campaign structure and organization, Clinton has a staff of at least 90 in Iowa, with an additional 100 unpaid organizing fellows, and at least 17 field offices. Bernie Sanders’ Iowa staff has grown to more than 50, with 14 offices. In Democratic circles, an operation of that size is not considered a luxury available only to front-runners like Clinton, but a prerequisite for being taken seriously. Though gaps in reporting are likely, Democracy in Action reports that no Republican candidate has more than 10 full-time staff in any early voting state (not counting consultants and volunteer leaders).

These numbers speak to a stark divide in what Republicans and Democrats find valuable in campaigns. For Democrats, it’s field. For Republicans, it’s gross ratings points on TV. The Republican position might be understandable at the moment; no one wants to sink money on a big staff in a fragmented field and risk not having enough to capitalize on late momentum. (Scott Walker would probably tell you this.) But failing to invest in staff will make adjusting to the very different terrain of the general election a major challenge for Republicans once the Trump freak show ends. And, make no mistake, it is likely to end.

The challenge to the political establishment has been the defining feature of the summer of Trump. But with Trump’s numbers already on the decline, the unconventional warfare he’s forced on Republican campaigns will be very different than the battle we’ll see next fall. From Ronald Reagan’s “I paid for this microphone” moment to George W. Bush’s recovery in the 2000 South Carolina primary to John McCain’s resurgence in New Hampshire in 2008, early front-runners fight back and win more often than not.

By late spring of 2016, if this historical pattern repeats itself, Clinton will be the presumptive Democratic nominee, facing a mainstream Republican who successfully navigated the chaos of the nomination contest. But the current war to upstage Trump, even if it ends well for a non-Trump candidate, is likely to reinforce bad Republican habits, like exclusive reliance on paid media and coasting on fundamentals, to the exclusion of the on-the-ground and digital organizing that proved decisive in the 2012 general election.

The 2016 Republican nominee may quickly discover that what works in presidential primaries doesn’t always work in general elections. TV advertising was decisive in Mitt Romney’s 2012 primary campaign in which millions in negative ads by his super PAC targeting Newt Gingrich helped win him the Florida primary. With the vast resources now flowing into super PACs, almost exclusively for TV, 2016 is likely to be 2012 on steroids. But the effectiveness of paid media is more limited in the general election, where both candidates enter the race well-defined and only a small number of voters are truly undecided. George Washington University political scientist John Sides noted that the Obama campaign’s much-touted decision to move $60 million of its 2012 fall advertising budget to define Romney in the spring and summer failed to generate any movement in the polls.

The Republican approach may be completely rational in a Hobbesian primary, where TV advertising can assist in defining candidates who still relatively unknown. The challenge the GOP will face is in adapting to the general election—not just message-wise, but in scaling an operation in an era of mass engagement. Many would argue that widespread mistrust of Clinton and an aversion to “Obama’s third term” should be enough to ensure a Republican victory. Such talk is political malpractice. The duty of a political campaign is to press every small advantage possible on every front, because the fundamentals of the election (the economy, or identity of the opponent) are often out of its control. Lessons forged in the parochialism of a primary may not be enough to ensure victory in the general election. Despite the obvious headwinds they may face in 2016, the two leading Democrats are at least trying to win their primary in a way that might pay dividends a year from now. Because of the primary campaigns each are running, Clinton or Sanders would be able to more easily roll over an experienced field team into a general election contest.

This divide is mirrored on the digital side of the campaign. Rather than hoarding money early, Democrats have invested in seven-figure email list-building programs to lay the foundation for eight- and nine-figure digital fundraising returns down the road.

Clinton and Sanders are very different candidates, but the strategies they have pursued in this regard are strikingly similar. In the second quarter, each had paid online advertising firms $1.2 million, exclusive of money paid for staff or to maintain their digital infrastructure. These ads are designed to do one thing: get as many people as possible to give over their email address to the campaign, so they can later be targeted for fundraising appeals. It’s an approach that’s already paying dividends. More than 90 percent of what Sanders raised in his first two months came in online, with more than $2 million coming in on the last day of the third quarter, Sept. 30. In total, Sanders’ fundraising machine came close to eclipsing Clinton’s $28 million total for the quarter. With an average donation of approximately $35, Sanders can go back to the well again and again, something Clinton may not be able to do as adeptly with her maxed-out donors.

To be sure, all has not been quiet on the Republican-front. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson announced a $20 million fundraising haul this quarter, also driven largely by small donations. It is believed that Carson’s haul was more heavily reliant on direct mail, with a higher cost of fundraising—but not exclusively so. The challenge for Carson, and for other candidates who may blaze this trail, is translating online energy into boots on the ground in early primary states, as Sanders has started to do for his insurgent candidacy.

Field organizing is old-school and digital fundraising is new-school, but what both have in common is a philosophical commitment to building a campaign one voter and one donor at a time. Once critical mass is reached, both are perpetual motion machines for voter outreach and fundraising. This is in contrast to the emphasis on mass communications we are likely to see in the Republican primary.

For a Republican campaign engaged in the 15-way trench warfare of primary, it is easy to put off thinking about the general election until the primary is won. But by then, it might be too late. Field and digital infrastructure don’t come together overnight; unlike media buys, they must be planned and built months in advance. The deficit in campaign mechanics Republicans have faced in the past two election cycles have largely come about because of a lack of time between winning the primary and the general election.

But how you choose to win the primary can help you prepare for the general election. In 2008, Obama had no more time after winning the nomination than McCain or Romney did in 2012. But he invested heavily and early in two strategic differentiators in the 50-state primary battle against Clinton: digital and field. In 2012, he perfected that model. And Republicans are still dealing with the consequences.