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Opposition reasearch is knowing your own
political following and making sure that you show the voters that are undecided that they do not fully know your opponent.
1. State Government's City and County crime statistics will give you an idea of the crime in the different areas of your voting district. 2. The State Job Service gathers information on unemployment and employment and whether the numbers of jobs are increasing or decreasing. 3. The State Department of Education compiles data on the school system, such as the results of the standard proficiency exams. 4. The State Department of Health can tell you about the numbers of teen pregnancies, child immunizations, and more. 5. The State Finance Department can break down the Cities and Counties budgets, expenditures and where the monies come from. 6. The local media, television, radio or newspapers will sometimes do polls. If it is in your favor . . . use it. They report on local happenings and those can transfer into issues for your campaign. 7. Talk with 6 to 10 involved and informed community leaders and ask them what is on their minds that a candidate for office should be addressing and what the perfect incumbent would have done to represent his constituents during the last term in office. With this information you need to consider what your opponents strongest supporters would feel about this information and if it were enough to get them to not vote for him/her and what do they admit are his/her weaknesses. If you can take away the opponent's strong points, his campaign will collapse, but be sure your arguments are credible and factual. If your candidate is the incumbent, you should research your own candidates record so you dont get blindsided. After you have finished gathering all the information you can find, write it in the form of a paper and give copies to all the key people in your campaign. Get together and prioritize these concerns indicating if they are problems that are getting worse, staying the same or getting better. This list will serve as criteria against which you can measure your opponent's and your own performance. Next, identify and write down every subject that would be of actual concern to the voters and establish whether or not your opponent has a good or bad record on that issue. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Challenging the Incumbent! in Women in Politics is owned by . Permission to republish Challenging the Incumbent! in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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