Answers · Campaigns

What is a campaign's ground game?

By Mert Yerekapan, maker of Midterms 2026 · Updated 2026-10-28

A ground game is the in-person part of a campaign: volunteers and staff knocking on doors, making phone calls, texting voters and running local offices. Its job is to find supporters and make sure they actually vote. The air game, by contrast, is the ads on TV and online.

What a ground game includes

Canvassing. Volunteers go door to door, talk to voters and record how they lean
Phone banks and texting. Callers reach voters who aren't home or live far from the office
Voter registration. Teams sign up new voters before the deadline
Volunteer recruiting. The operation depends on people giving up their evenings and weekends
Field offices. Local bases where volunteers gather and supplies are kept

Why it matters

Studies of voter contact generally find that personal outreach, especially face to face, does more per contact than ads do. A neighbor asking you to vote is harder to ignore than a commercial.

It's also how campaigns collect data. Every conversation tells the campaign who supports them, who doesn't and who still needs a push. That list is what makes turnout work later.

The effect is usually modest in any one conversation, but in a close race a few points can decide it. That's why close contests tend to attract the most field work.

The weak spots

A ground game is slow and labor-heavy. It takes weeks or months to build, and it depends on volunteers who may or may not show up. It also costs real money for staff, offices and tools.

I think this is why it's the first thing to get cut when a campaign is short on cash, and why you can sometimes spot a struggling campaign by an empty office.

Ground game versus air game

Most strong campaigns use both. Ads create awareness and set the mood, and the ground game turns that interest into votes. Doing only one tends to leave something on the table.

What I'd do

I'd build the field operation early, because it takes the longest to grow, and I'd focus on a small number of places instead of spreading volunteers across a whole map.

That's a lot like the main loop in Midterms 2026, the free iPhone election game I built. You open state offices, which grow your vote and pay income over time, so the earlier you plant them, the more they return. It's not a perfect model of field work, but it does capture the idea that early organizing pays off by Election Day.