A political campaign is an organized operation to support a candidate or ballot initiative. Every two years, during election cycles, thousands of campaigns are organized nationwide, ranging from small, local operations with just two or three paid staff members to large federal operations that include hundreds of paid and volunteer staffers, as well as consultants. Whether you choose to work on a campaign depends largely on the kind of experience you want (including political, policy, and advance), and the types of ideas and policies that you want to see advance. A political campaign is also a great opportunity to develop and refine a variety of skills in a fast-paced, highly flexible environment. In addition, working on a political campaign can often lead directly to government employment down the road.
Almost all campaigns have roles for a variety of areas, including fundraising, data analytics, field operations, and more. Generally speaking, smaller campaigns tend to have more roles that require jack-of-all-trades abilities and larger campaigns offer a more focused assortment of specialized skills and duties.
Campaigns usually do not have many positions that focus on substantive policy issues; voters typically form impressions of where candidates stand on specific policy ideas from political debates and the media, which often provide a limited amount of actual policy substance. However, there are a few opportunities to focus on policy in campaign roles, such as gubernatorial or presidential campaigns that may be supported by partisan campaign committees that oversee the executive branch races.