A political campaign is an organized effort to elect candidates to public office or pass ballot initiatives such as constitutional amendments, legislative referenda, or local ordinances. The main objective of any campaign is to secure a majority—or sometimes just a plurality—of votes to win an election. To do that, campaign staffers and volunteers seek to identify, persuade, organize, and mobilize the supporters of their candidate or cause. While most campaigns are fueled by an army of volunteers, many also rely on paid staffers and consultants to manage and oversee strategic decision-making and daily operations.

Campaigns offer prospective staffers—particularly college students to mid-level professionals—an opportunity to learn how to promote ideas and influence public policy while quickly gaining professional experience and building a meaningful career. Working on a campaign can be challenging and very demanding but also rewarding both personally and professionally. To make the most of your campaign experience, it’s important to know how to choose a campaign that best fits your needs. This guide will help you do that by providing an overview of (1) the different types of campaigns, (2) the pros and cons of campaign work to determine your personal fit, (3) the best ways to find a campaign job, and (4) how to use your campaign experience to build a career in policymaking and other politics-adjacent fields. 

While campaign experience can be highly valuable for various politics-adjacent roles, individuals specifically aiming to contribute to emerging technology policy at the US federal level may find more direct routes through internships, fellowships, or full-time roles in Congress, federal agencies, or think tanks.

This guide exclusively focuses on US political campaigns and is written from a nonpartisan perspective.

Campaign types, organization, and roles

Campaign types

Every two years (a campaign cycle), thousands of nationwide campaigns are organized to elect a candidate or pass a ballot initiative. These campaigns come in all shapes and sizes—from small, local operations of two or three volunteers, to large, federal operations of hundreds of volunteers, paid staffers, and consultants. While most federal and state offices are up for election during even-numbered years (“on years”), there are also several local and state offices up for election during odd-numbered years (“off years”). Most campaigns last just eight to ten months, but the range in duration is large, with some lasting mere months and others spanning up to two years. The type of campaign largely dictates both its duration and scale. 

Campaigns can be broken down into two main categories: those for candidates and those for ballot initiatives. Candidate campaigns are straightforward; these operations exist solely to elect an individual or a “slate” of individuals (see legislative campaigns) to public office. Ballot initiative campaigns are more varied as their duration and strategic scope depend on the state and/or district in which they operate. While some of them advocate for highly salient issues and make major headlines throughout their election cycle (e.g. abortion access or marijuana legalization), most fly under the radar of the average voter. One helpful resource for searching ballot initiatives is the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Ballot Measures Database.

Types of candidate campaigns
	Legislative branch	Executive branch	Judicial branch
Federal	Congress	President	N/A
State	State legislature	Governor Attorney General Secretary of State, etc.	State courts
Local	City council, etc.	Mayor, etc.	County/regional courts

Candidate campaigns comprise most electoral opportunities in any given election cycle. There are candidate campaigns for all three branches of government—yes, even judges can be elected in many states—and every level of government, from municipal to federal. With 535 seats in Congress, 7,386 state legislative seats across the country (as of November 2024), and thousands more city or county legislative seats, legislative branch campaigns are the most common campaign type, and they provide the most campaign job opportunities. Executive branch campaigns come in a distant second with thousands of city- and statewide executive seats nationwide. Lastly, all but seven states hold some form of elections for judges in some or all of their jurisdictions.

Primary and general election campaigns

Candidate campaigns can be further broken down into primary and general election campaigns. Primaries serve to select a party’s nominee for the general election, with candidates from the same political party competing against each other. They typically occur several months before the general election and see significantly lower voter turnout. Whereas general elections involve appealing to a broader electorate, including independents and moderate voters from other parties, primary races focus more on intraparty ideological differences and policy priorities. Primary competitiveness can vary widely depending on factors like the intensity of intraparty divisions, the number of candidates in the race, endorsements and funding capacities, and whether or not the incumbent is running for reelection.

Almost all states use some form of primary elections to select party nominees for US congressional seats, and most states also use primaries for major state-level offices (e.g. Governor, state legislature). Presidential primaries and caucuses are held in all states, though their formats can vary significantly. Many local elections, such as those for city council or school board, are often nonpartisan and may not involve primaries at all. 

There are three main types of primary elections: open primary, closed primary, and blanket primary. In open primaries, voters can select which primary they want to vote in, regardless of their own political affiliation. In closed primaries, voters can only vote for the party with which they’re registered. In a blanket primary (sometimes referred to as a “jungle” or “top-two” primary), all candidates from all parties appear on a single ballot, and the top vote-getters advance to the general election, even if they’re from the same party. Some states’ primaries are also “partially open,” “partially closed,” or use a modified version of the blanket primary. Primary systems can vary not only by state but also by type of office—for example, California uses a top-two primary system for most state and federal offices, but uses a modified closed primary system for presidential primaries. (See here for more on state primary election types).

While competitive, high-profile general campaigns offer the best opportunity for professional development, working for competitive primary campaigns can also provide highly valuable experience. Primaries offer unique exposure to intraparty dynamics and can provide a segue to general campaign staffing, as candidates that win their primary often retain their campaign staffers for the general. Especially for high-profile campaigns, starting early as a volunteer in the primary season could help your odds of getting hired as campaign staff for the general.

Competitive campaigns and partisan campaign committees

Not all campaigns are created equal. Many races for public office go uncontested, meaning one person standing for election (usually the incumbent) is automatically elected due to the lack of an opponent. Many more are simply uncompetitive, meaning those who do seek to challenge the candidate favored to win have very low odds of mounting a successful upset. Some races see both sides commit fully to competing; offices where it’s uncertain who may win. These races are both contested and competitive. Competitive races offer the best opportunity to gain meaningful experience and build a career: reward follows risk.

Campaigns become competitive when the races for public office have margins of victory in the low single-digits and/or the shifts in party control happen frequently from one election to another. These races usually decide party control of the relevant branch of government and the outcome of highly salient policy debates. In states where one party consistently dominates general elections, primary races within that party can also be highly competitive and consequential, often determining the party’s ideological makeup and policy priorities. Competitive campaigns almost always raise and spend the most money, hire the most staff, and generally build the most professional campaign operations, given their impact on the balance of power and policy outcomes.

Competitive campaigns also attract the interest of the major party ecosystems. Both Democrats and Republicans have formal campaign committees that oversee various public offices in the legislative and executive branches of government. These committees are constituted by elected officials for fellow members and candidates of their respective political parties, branches of government, and public offices. The sole purpose of these committees is to raise and spend money to protect incumbent politicians and gain more seats for their caucus or party. Most campaign committees release lists of prioritized races during every election cycle that signal to donors and the rest of their partisan ecosystems which campaigns are worthy of support. They prioritize resources for the most competitive and consequential campaigns and exert meaningful influence over the management of those campaigns. Below is a brief overview of the most prominent national partisan campaign committees. There are also some statewide counterparts to these national committees that serve the same function for competitive non-federal campaigns in their respective states. 

Partisan campaign committees
	US House	US Senate	State Legislatures	Governors	Attorneys General
Democrats	Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)	Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)	Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC)	Democratic Governors Association (DGA)	Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA)
Republicans	National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC)	National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC)	Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC)	Republican Governors Association (RGA)	Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA)

Legislative campaigns

State legislative campaigns are usually organized on behalf of one individual candidate. There are a handful of states, however, like Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New Hampshire, that have multi-member legislative districts where anywhere from two to eleven people are elected to represent their respective districts. In multi-member districts, same-party candidates usually run together as a “slate,” with the campaigns working to elect the group as a whole.

Whereas US House members serve two-year terms and US Senators serve six-year terms, all state legislative terms are either two or four years. In November 2024, 44 states had legislative races, with 5,808 of the nation’s 7,386 legislative seats up for regularly scheduled election. In comparison, a total of 468 seats in US Congress were up for election (33 Senate seats, and all 435 House seats). US Senate elections are staggered over even years so that only about one-third of the Senate is up for reelection in a given election cycle.

Source: Ballotpedia

Campaigns for US House and Senate and state legislative seats have the most formalized structure and are typically overseen by campaign committees. The major political parties exert a lot of influence over legislative campaigns, as they gain and exercise power as a bloc or caucus and rarely as individuals (unlike executive branch positions). In the US House for instance, Democrats and Republicans have specific programs to organize the protection of their incumbents and to challenge seats held by the opposing party. The incumbent programs are called “Frontline” and “Patriot Program” for Democrats and Republicans respectively. And the challenger programs are called “Red to Blue” and “Young Guns” respectively. 

Prospective staffers should first consult relevant campaign committee websites and outside rating agencies (such as the Cook Political Report) to determine which campaigns are considered competitive and are being prioritized. Working for campaigns that are prioritized by partisan campaign committees is likely to give staffers the best on-the-job experience and the most professional development opportunities. Competitive campaigns also provide the most opportunities for well-performing staffers to make a difference by helping to get their candidates elected. 

Another helpful resource is Ballotpedia, which provides many maps of competitiveness and other race metrics.

Source: Ballotpedia, with data from The Cook Political Report

Executive campaigns

Executive branch campaigns such as President, Governor, State Attorney General, and Mayor are all organized on behalf of one candidate. These campaigns have relatively more autonomy compared to legislative campaigns as they aren’t so heavily managed by campaign committees. Presidential campaigns have almost total control over how they operate. But statewide executive races are also becoming increasingly more organized and structured by partisan campaign committees. The Democratic and Republican Governors Associations, for instance, oversee gubernatorial campaigns across the country. These committees use similar organizational and campaign oversight models as the congressional campaign committees.

Judicial campaigns and ballot initiatives

Judicial campaigns and ballot initiatives are highly varied as their operational structure and strategic and tactical plans depend on the laws and rules of the relevant state and/or jurisdiction. Many of these campaigns must be nonpartisan, and even partisan judicial campaigns can have strict rules on what judicial candidates can or cannot say during their elections. Both campaign types, however, often operate similarly to candidate campaigns as their objectives are to win a majority of votes. 

For example, the 2024 Florida Amendment 4, which would have created a state constitutional right to abortion, and Nevada’s Question 3, which would have created top-five ranked-choice voting in the state, demonstrate how ballot measures can involve complex policy issues that require extensive voter education campaigns. These initiatives attracted significant funding and volunteer engagement from both supporters and opponents, while remaining officially nonpartisan despite their politically charged nature.

Prospective staffers who want campaign experience but don’t want to affiliate with a particular political party should consider ballot initiative campaigns as they’re nonpartisan, even if the relevant initiative is associated with a major party.

Organization and roles

Every campaign can have a different assortment of roles and responsibilities; typically, smaller campaigns tend to have fewer roles with more demanding workloads and jack-of-all trade requirements, while larger campaigns will have more specialized roles that come with slightly more manageable workloads. While every campaign in principle can choose its own staffing structure, there are a lot of similarities across campaigns. The chart below gives a general overview of the types of roles typically found across different campaign types. 

Candidate campaign typical staff positions
	President	US House	US Senate	Governor, Attorney General, etc.	State Legislative	Local
Campaign Manager	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Finance Director	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Call Time Manager	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Digital Director	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Organizing Director	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Regional Organizing Director(s)	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Organizing Officer(s)	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Advance Director	✔️		✔️	✔️
Advance Assistant(s)	✔️		✔️	✔️
Communications Director	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️		✔️
Press Secretary	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Political Director	✔️		✔️	✔️
Research/Policy Director	✔️		✔️	✔️
Data Director	✔️		✔️	✔️

Most campaigns will try to hire at least two or three paid staffers to handle project and budget management, fundraising, volunteer organizing, and voter engagement programs. Usually, a campaign manager or a general consultant handles the first set of responsibilities; a finance director or call time manager handles the second set; and an organizing director or volunteer coordinator handles the final set of responsibilities together with a team of volunteers. In any case, a campaign manager/general consultant and finance director/call time manager are usually the first hires for any campaign, and are involved in hiring additional vendors and staff.

As campaigns grow, they typically expand their field operation by hiring field organizers—often recent college graduates or young professionals starting their political careers. These jobs will make up the bulk of any campaign team. Large statewide or congressional campaigns might employ anywhere from 10 to 50+ field organizers, while smaller local campaigns might hire just 2-3. These junior staffers form the backbone of a campaign’s ground game, managing volunteer recruitment, voter contact, and data collection in their assigned geographic territories.

Campaign finance 

Better-funded campaigns typically have bigger teams, thus providing more job opportunities. There are a few leading indicators of a candidate’s ability to raise meaningful sums of money: (1) support from their respective partisan campaign committee; (2) incumbency/successful fundraising in current and past races; (3) potential to self-fund; and (4) how well their message resonates as measured by virality and online engagement. More funding means more campaign resources for winning more votes, so a candidate’s fundraising abilities are important to consider when choosing a candidate/campaign to work for.

For incumbent candidates or those who have run for office before, you can search for their past campaign finance reports online. For federal candidates, the Federal Election Commission is the go-to source for most campaign finance data. Many states and counties have similar sites for statewide, legislative, and local races.

Working on a transition team

Working directly for a campaign can be beneficial to building a career in policymaking or other politics-adjacent fields, as can working for a political transition team. Transition teams, operating in parallel with the campaign, prepare a smooth transfer of power should the candidate win. Transition teams are required for the presidential candidates of every major party and are very common for gubernatorial and mayoral candidates. They can be very consequential in shaping a successful candidate’s policy trajectory, especially when there is a change in administration from one political party to another. And they’re needed even when an incumbent transitions from their first administration to their second. 

Working on a transition team is especially beneficial for aspiring policymakers since the main goal of transition teams is to develop a governing plan for the incoming administration. For presidential transition teams, this involves preparing to select more than 4,000 presidential appointees, planning specific actions for the first 10, 100, 200, and 300 days post-inauguration, and evaluating how more than 100 federal agencies can help enact the president’s goals. When staffing a transition team, hiring managers look for applicants with policy- and specific subject-matter expertise capable of helping prepare plans for policymaking and implementation. At a senior level, this work can include drafting executive orders, conferring with Congress (for presidential) or the state’s legislature (for gubernatorial) on policy priorities and appointment selections, and developing briefing materials for agency heads. Transition teams are ideal for those who want to avoid the rough and tumble of campaign politics and take a more technical approach to policy. 

Hiring usually starts in the spring of the election year (i.e. the “on-year”), and the transition team works in tandem with the campaign team throughout the campaign season. During this initial hiring phase, policy expertise and prior work with the candidate are highly valued. If the candidate wins election, the “official” transition period begins and lasts through the beginning (typically the first week) of the new administration, marking the most intensive stage of preparation. Transition teams will grow exponentially during this period, often through a rapid influx of campaign staff. Recent presidential transition teams have ballooned from a few dozen staff pre-election to hundreds of staff post-election.

One helpful resource is the Center for Presidential Transition, which hosts a comprehensive Presidential Transition Guide and the Transition Lab Podcast.

Campaign timelines

Election cycles vary by state and office, but most fall roughly within the timeline below. All congressional and presidential elections fall on even-numbered years, and all but four states also hold their legislative and gubernatorial elections in even-numbered years. One exception to this is special elections, which take place when an elected official leaves their seat before their term ends. The winner of a special election may then run as the incumbent for the next regularly scheduled election.

• December to March prior to election: Filing deadline for primary candidates
  • For a candidate to appear on the primary election ballot in their state (and, if successful, to progress to the general election), they must file to run by this deadline. You can find candidate filing deadlines by state here. After the filing deadline, you’ll know who will be running and can begin researching campaigns you might want to work for.
• Spring and summer prior to election: Primary and run-off elections 
  • The latest presidential primaries (or caucuses) are in June, but statewide office primaries can extend through early September. Depending on the election cycle, statewide primaries will have a combination of legislative, congressional, and gubernatorial races on the ballot. Many states will hold both their statewide and presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, when about one-third of total delegates to the presidential nominating conventions are determined.

• Fall: General election 
  • General election campaigns ramp up by September and continue through Election Day, which takes place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November (e.g. November 5, 2024). Most states end voter registration sometime in October, though some allow in-person voter registration on Election Day. 
• November to December: Post-election planning
  • If a candidate wins, hiring for official-side positions begins. For many executive positions, transition team hiring also begins (or expands).

Personal fit: Pros & cons to campaign work

Working on a political campaign isn’t for everyone. Whether to pursue this work depends a lot on your personal fit, interests, and broader career goals.

Pros

There are many benefits to working for a campaign, especially if you’re early in your career. Campaign jobs are very accessible; if you have a cell phone and computer (a car is usually a huge plus!) and you’re willing to show up on time, most campaigns will find something for you to do. And most of the work that needs to be done is straightforward or easy to learn. 

The pros of working for a campaign can be broadly categorized as follows: 

1. Building experience, skills, and networks—you can quickly build and sharpen professional skills through meaningful experience.
2. Career advancement—you can build and accelerate your career in politics or politics-adjacent fields, such as policymaking, lobbying, or consulting.
3. Civic engagement—you can help address issues of public concern, learn how to make a difference through collective political action, and be part of something bigger than yourself. 

Building experience, skills, and networks

• Professional development: There are very few work experiences that compare to the fast-paced, high-intensity, emotionally charged experience of working for a US political campaign. While the conditions can be very demanding, they make for an especially good environment to gain professional experience and sharpen foundational skills that you’ll use throughout your career. 
• Skill-building: Depending on your role, you can expect to develop basic skills in teamwork/collaboration, organization, communications, and interpersonal matters. As you take on more senior roles, you’ll also gain more subject-matter experience in areas such as project and budget management, fundraising, public relations and strategic communications, elections and voter data management, polling and research, digital and social media communications, and public policy.
• Networking: Whether you’re at a fundraiser, political endorsement meeting, or a rally, campaigns offer staffers many opportunities to network and meet influential people in both the public and private sectors. With some motivation and intentionality, it’s very easy to build and grow a professional network that can help you advance your career within or beyond politics.

Career advancement

• Rapid career advancement: Given the relatively brief nature of political campaigns (three to twelve months) and the meaningful experience you can gain by working for one, it’s common to experience rapid career advancement in a short period of time. For instance, it’s possible to go from a senior role on a state legislative campaign as your first job to a mid-level to senior role on a US Senate race in a matter of just three campaign cycles (6 years). Win or lose, the experience you gain working for a candidate or cause you believe in can be its own reward.
• Transitioning into full-time policy jobs: Campaign experience is also highly valued if you want to work in the government offices of elected officials—colloquially referred to as the “official side” (Capitol Hill, governor’s office, state legislative offices, etc.). The campaign-to-official-side pipeline is a common way to build a career in policy if your candidate wins. But even if your candidate loses, there could be opportunities to join official offices of winning peer candidates (candidates of campaigns at the same level and branch of government). Importantly, campaign jobs tend to help more if you’re pursuing a role within the same branch of your candidate (e.g. working on a presidential campaign will likely provide better transition opportunities for agency work). If you aim to transition to working in the government office of your candidate post-campaign, consider prioritizing campaigns for candidates with positions you support in your areas of interest. Campaign experience is also valuable in other politics-adjacent fields such as lobbying, consulting, and issue advocacy, or if you’re interested in running for office yourself someday.
  • If your primary goal is to prepare for a career in government working on substantive policy issues (such as AI policy or biosecurity policy), several expert reviewers of this guide suggested that, rather than working for a political campaign, there are some more direct and reliable pathways to get there—such as working as an intern, fellow, or full-time staffer in Congress or federal agencies, or completing a policy graduate degree. But, depending on your individual goals and the opportunities available to you, campaign work may still be a good way to build a network of political contacts, gain firsthand experience in the electoral process, and develop insights into how policy ideas translate into voter engagement and political momentum.
• Fit testing: Working or even volunteering for a campaign is a great way to test your fit for political work; it’ll give you a sense of the practical realities—both advantages and limitations—of political work. This in turn will allow you to better determine if you can achieve your own professional and personal ambitions. For instance, if your career ambition is to become a policymaker, you’ll learn how political support is built and maintained for particular policy ideas. You could discover ways to improve messaging and advocacy for specific policy ideas in a way that motivates you to take on more single-issue advocacy work. You could also realize the limitations to advocating for specific policy details on the campaign trail and be motivated to pursue your policy goals in a more technical, nonpartisan way.
• Developing political instincts: Most campaigns are deeply rooted in the communities in which they operate. As such, staffers get a very personal and community-based understanding of how political support for policy ideas is gained, managed, and/or lost. This experience will allow aspiring policymakers or policy-influencers (e.g. advocates and lobbyists) to develop political instincts that can be crucial to career advancement. Importantly, campaigns predominantly focus on the issues that are most salient to their potential voters. This means the political instincts you develop from campaign work will be aligned with the concerns and priorities specific to your campaign’s district, and opportunities to see political dynamics around specific policy areas will likely be limited. But many of these insights can still be helpful to understanding political dynamics in other issue areas.

Civic engagement 

• Making a difference: Campaign work can be a rewarding and meaningful way to practice civic engagement. Campaigns offer you a chance to help elect a candidate you support or help implement a cause you support.
• Learning to motivate people: Campaigns offer direct experience in engaging, organizing, and mobilizing people to take part in collective political action. This experience can be invaluable as it gives you very practical insights into the best and worst practices for motivating disparate groups of people to take united action.
• Collective achievement: Campaigns are very team- and community-based. Most successful campaigns have one crucial thing in common: they’re powered by large groups of people who are fighting for candidates and causes they believe will make their communities better. Contributing to such a passionate, collective effort can be very personally rewarding. 

Cons

While working for campaigns comes with many benefits, it also has costs, including:

• Demanding nature of the work. Many campaign jobs require long hours, working many evenings and weekends, performing tedious tasks, managing interpersonal conflict, and having to take on many responsibilities outside of your job description and/or comfort zone. For most campaigns, the majority of staffers hired will do field work (e.g. making calls, door-to-door campaigning, and/or managing volunteers), which can be physically and socially tiring. These conditions can lead to high stress and burnout.

• Very limited space for substantive policy work. Most campaigns aren’t won or lost on policy substance. Voters have general impressions of where candidates stand on a given issue, but these impressions are largely generalities formed by assumptions made on partisan affiliation, paid advertising, and viral moments throughout a campaign. Even political debates often have very little policy substance these days. These conditions mean that there are very few campaign roles allowing you to work on substantive policy issues. There are some exceptions, such as policy-focused roles on presidential or gubernatorial campaigns, including roles as “Research/Policy Director” and on transition teams. But even with these roles, the work of policy or research staff frequently gets diluted into simple talking points that intentionally forego policy details. Most policy or research roles produce policy positions that live on campaign websites or form the basis of the transition teams’ work if the candidate wins the election.
• Moving is likely required. Most campaigns require staff to live in the city in which they operate, so many prospective staffers will have to move to join the most competitive campaigns. It’s also common to move to different parts of the country from one election cycle to another, often on short notice.
• Relative lack of job security. Most campaigns last no more than a year, and if your candidate loses you’ll be out of work very soon after the election. It can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months to go from one campaign job to the next. There are meaningfully fewer campaign opportunities during the off-years, which is why the campaign-to-official-side pipeline is so appealing to many campaign staffers. Entry-level staffers in particular typically take on temporary work in between campaigns, while mid- to senior-level staffers have an easier time getting hired on one of the few off-year campaigns that are available.
• Low pay in the early stages. While it’s possible to receive decent-to-good compensation on campaigns, most people who join in entry-level positions aren’t paid well, given the work they do and the hours they put in (see the section below on campaign salaries). Fortunately, it’s possible to quickly climb the career ladder and make more money in a relatively short period of time.
• Hyper-partisanship and negative campaigning can take their toll. Many young campaign staffers and those new to politics likely join a campaign with idealistic and virtuous ambitions. It can therefore be hard to process the negativity of political campaigns, whether from your candidate’s opponents, the media, or strangers on social media.

Testing your fit for campaign work

If you’re unsure about your fit for campaign work, there are different things you could do to get a better sense of it (see also our general list of activities to test your fit for policy work). For example, you might try:

• Reading some testimonies online about what it’s like to work on a campaign and how to get a job there. You can try finding posts relevant to your own situation (e.g. Reddit threads on campaign work during college or off-season campaign work).
• Speaking to some professionals with campaign work experience. If you don’t have existing connections, you could reach out to people with a relevant background via email or LinkedIn to express interest in hearing about their experience. Using your college alumni connections here could also be helpful.
• Attending political events to observe how campaigns interact with voters and network with campaign staff and volunteers.
• Volunteering for a campaign by reaching out to campaigns online or visiting the campaign office and asking how you can help. You can follow campaigns on social media to keep track of upcoming events.
• Participating in student political organizations where you can engage in campus political activities and gain experience organizing events and mobilizing peers. Student groups may also have contacts working full-time on campaigns they could connect you with.

Getting a political campaign role

It’s important to know how to choose a campaign that best fits your needs if you want to get the most out of your experience. First, take stock of your career goals—what kind of roles do you want in the future? Which skills and credentials do you need to develop to be qualified for those roles? Is political campaign work the best way to get there? Then, determine which ideas and policy positions you want to advance and with which political party, if any, you want to affiliate. Don’t forget to assess personal goals, such as your preferences on geographic location, salary range, work-life balance, and other personal needs such as dependents and family life. From there, you’ll be able to determine which campaign type and candidate will be the likeliest best fit. 

Choosing a campaign: a framework and tool

To simplify this decision-making process, consider three simple questions (below is a decision tool that you can plug your answer to these questions into): 

1. What stage of your career are you in? Your career stage helps you determine which level of government you should prioritize and when you should transition from campaign to post-campaign work. Those early in their careers will get more responsibility on bottom-ballot campaigns (local or state legislative races) and will likely be capped at junior roles on mid- to top-ballot campaigns. Those later in their careers (including those in their mid- to late twenties with significant prior campaign experience) will have more flexibility when joining a campaign. Confidence—so long as it’s paired with competence—goes a long way in politics.
2. What is your desired career path? Your desired career path influences what kind of campaign you should prioritize (candidate or ballot) and what kind of roles you should consider. While campaigns are great for building and developing skills and gaining meaningful experience quickly, campaign experience isn’t equally useful for every post-campaign career path. Knowing where you want to end up in the medium-to-long term will help you determine the best experience to get you there in the short term.
3. Do you want to affiliate with a particular political party? Partisan affiliation is very important in campaign work. Most opportunities are partisan, and once you have chosen a particular party, you’ll incur reputational and career costs if you later switch (the costs are low early in your career but significantly rise the more time you spend with one party).

Below is a tool to help you consider potential career paths based on your goals and needs. It’s not meant to cover every factor relevant to career planning, and your individual goals and circumstances may well lead you to different conclusions from this tool. But it could still support your thought process on which campaign to choose.

Additional considerations for choosing a campaign

There are still a few other factors to consider once you have a general sense of which campaign is best for you:

• Competitive vs non-competitive election: As explained above, competitive campaigns—where the outcome isn’t clear in advance—generally offer more meaningful experience and opportunities for professional development and making a difference. Consult the relevant campaign committee to determine how likely a candidate/campaign is to receive support.
• Choosing a candidate: When deciding on a candidate, you should consider the following questions: Does this candidate share your values? Do they support many of the policies you support? How likely are they to win? What do former or current staffers say about them? Is this candidate supported by people or institutions you respect? Do you have ties to the constituency your candidate wants to represent? Having ties to the community (familial, educational, etc) of your preferred candidate can help to distinguish yourself as an applicant.
• Incumbent vs challenger: Competitive incumbent campaigns can be as meaningful an experience as competitive challenger campaigns. But if you want a job in your candidate’s official office after the election, there could be fewer opportunities with an incumbent who already has an official side staff compared to a challenger, who would likely have to build their staff from scratch.
• Federal vs state/local election: The level of government of a race matters if there are specific policy issues you care about and for your professional development. If you want to build a long-term career in federal political or policy work, you may benefit most from working on federal campaigns in terms of the networks and knowledge you develop as well as your post-campaign employment options. National policy issues are usually most relevant to federal races and federal races often provide the most career development opportunities for federal work as they usually attract the most media attention, money, and talent, and offer the most prestige. Although statewide races can similarly boost your career in the right context (e.g. by allowing you to work in more senior campaign roles earlier in your career), the policy focuses and networking opportunities they provide will be more relevant to local issues. National issues only rarely make it into salient debates in state and local campaigns, although all political issues and campaigns are increasingly nationalized. State campaigns and some big city campaigns are especially meaningful opportunities if you’re interested in future state or city-level political or policy work.
• Policy vs politics: As noted above, be aware if you want to parlay political experience into a policymaking career, campaign work likely won’t give you many opportunities to gain relevant policy experience on your preferred issues. Even if you do, those issues will likely only be relevant to the candidate and campaign in a limited political capacity. While you may build valuable professional skills and learn much about the political process by working on a campaign, it’s unlikely to allow you to build issue-specific subject matter expertise (so, it might not prepare you as well for policy roles requiring such expertise, like think tank research). Remember: candidate campaigns are primarily about winning elections, not particular policy outcomes. (Partial exceptions to the above are the few substantive policy roles on campaigns, like “Research/Policy Director”, or working on a transition team). 

Typical campaign salary

Historically, campaigns haven’t always provided livable wages for their staffers. But many campaigns today—especially in competitive races—offer fair compensation. In many elections, since campaign expenditures must be publicly reported, you can consult the Federal Elections Commission website or the campaign expenditure section of each state’s Secretary of State campaign finance website to see what current staffers earn (or staffers from previous cycles/similar races). 

Compensation can vary widely based on campaign type, competitiveness, geographic location, and whether the candidate is a self-funder. There are still ballpark ranges that can be made to help set expectations. The tool below contains estimated pre-tax salary ranges categorized by staff role and campaign type based on the experience of a senior campaign staffer (representative for the 2024 cycle).

Finding a job and the hiring process

The hiring process for campaign jobs is still largely based on networking. While some opportunities are posted on job boards or campaign websites, most campaign jobs are obtained by knowing someone who knows someone. Political consultants in fundraising, media, and polling are the best go-to sources to inquire about opportunities. Campaign committees are also a good source for opportunities. 

One of the best ways to get involved in a campaign directly is to volunteer for a campaign in or near your place of residence. Campaigns always need volunteers, and it’s a good first step to building a network. To sign up as a volunteer, you can usually visit a campaign’s official website and look for a “Volunteer” or “Get Involved” section or reach out directly to local campaign offices. It’s also one of the easiest ways to get a campaign job, as it’s easier for overworked campaign staff in hiring positions to assess the applicant in the office over those buried in an inbox. If you’re a high school or college student, you could also try joining campus political groups to help build soft experience and distinguish yourself as an applicant. 

Many campaign jobs have a simple three-step hiring process once you have been connected to someone on the campaign and they have expressed interest: 

1. A pre-screen call with a staff member
2. A more formal interview to determine why you believe you’re a good fit for the role
3. A final interview with a senior staff member and/or the candidate

Preparing for an interview

Campaign interviews aren’t meaningfully different from interviews for any other job. Prospective staffers should know about the candidate/cause and district/state, and be able to compellingly articulate why they’re a good fit for the role for which they have applied. One important factor unique to candidate campaign interviews is your political beliefs; applicants should be prepared to discuss their political beliefs in the context of the particular campaign to which they have applied.

Here are a few specific tips to consider before an interview:

• Research outcomes from the two most recent campaign cycles: How did my candidate or a candidate from the same party perform in this race last cycle? How much money did the winner and their opponent raise? What was the media coverage like? What were the dominant issues covered in earned media and paid media?

• Have some ballpark goals for your work based on your research and desired position: What’s your win number (i.e. how many votes are needed to win)? How much money do you need to raise? What issues should we highlight? 

• Don’t be afraid to communicate with your hiring manager: Many campaign staffers—especially those with team-building responsibilities—are overworked and have unruly email inboxes, so you might find that these people aren’t always responsive. Don’t take it personally, and don’t assume you’re being annoying by following up and sending reminders. Don’t play it cool: it’s okay to show your enthusiasm for the role by being politely persistent with correspondence.

• Interviews go both ways: How do they talk about the campaign? Does the description of the role motivate you? Are you a good behavioral and personality fit (and can you communicate that)?

What comes next: post-campaign employment

There are many off-ramp opportunities in campaign politics, given the shortened time frame of each campaign, so there are many post-campaign paths one can take. Below are a few common post-campaign paths: 

• Official side: If your candidate wins their election, they will have to staff their government or “official” offices. Legislative branch offices have both capital and district offices to staff; similarly, executive branch offices have a slew of city, state, or federal agencies that must be staffed with political appointees. If you’re interested in policymaking, the campaign-to-official-side pipeline is one of the fastest ways to transition from campaign politics to policy. All of this depends on your candidate being successful in their election, of course. Depending on the job, campaign work might not be sufficient experience, so it’s important to gain the relevant subject-matter experience in addition to campaign experience (e.g. by completing a relevant graduate degree or via internships or fellowships). Junior-level staffers will generally find it more challenging to leverage their experience into opportunities on the official side, but depending on office budgets, there could be some entry-level administrative openings. Importantly, there will be more job opportunities with competitor/first-time candidates as opposed to incumbents, as the latter will likely already have fully staffed offices. Incumbents running for higher office will likely need more staff than they have had previously, but they’re likely to pull a significant amount of staff from their lower office.
• Issue advocacy: If you want to focus more on advocating for policy positions that you support, you can join a single-issue organization. While most of these organizations must be nonpartisan for tax purposes, many are effectively extensions of the political parties that tend to support their positions. For instance, the firearms groups National Rifle Association and Everytown for Gun Safety are examples of nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations that are effectively extensions of the conservative/Republican and progressive/Democratic partisan ecosystems, respectively.
• Policy research: As mentioned above, the largely non-substantive nature of most campaign work doesn’t provide ideal preparation for policy research positions, which typically require subject matter expertise. But understanding the political process and developing general professional skills (e.g. writing, project management) could still become valuable assets in more substantive policy positions, including in government, at think tanks, government contractors, or the national labs and other FFRDCs. Given the much more substantive focus of transition teams, working for one could allow you to engage with subject matter policy debates more directly.
• Civil service: If you choose not to associate with a particular political party after some time working on campaigns, you can apply for civil service jobs in city, state, or federal agencies. Civil service jobs, unlike political appointments to government agencies, are strictly nonpartisan—you’re prohibited from engaging in politics while fulfilling your duties. Some of these jobs even prohibit certain political activities outside of work. This route would particularly benefit those with a more technical perspective on policy and who opted for work on a political transition team over a campaign.
• Lobbying/public affairs: If you want to directly influence decision-makers on a given policy position or issue, you can choose to join a lobbying firm or work for the public affairs department of a company or nonprofit organization. Campaign experience, especially if you made the most of networking opportunities, can be very valuable in such roles. Most lobbying firms focus their efforts on the legislative branch, so it’s best to have experience working for or with legislators or legislative candidates. Depending on the issue, however, there are many opportunities to focus on executive branch agencies.
• Political consulting: If you want to provide your services to candidates or organizations that you support, you can join a political consulting firm; if you’re very entrepreneurial, you can even start your own. Many consultants specialize in some form of paid advertising (television, digital, direct mail, etc.), fundraising, or strategic communications. Their campaign experience then becomes a major selling point to potential clients or employers. For example, FP1 (Republican) and SKDK (Democratic) are prominent media firms that hire consultants who specialize in advertising (television, direct mail, and/or digital) or generalists who provide political and communications advice.

Transitioning from campaigning to post-campaign work

While there is no magic formula for deciding when to make the switch from campaign work to other opportunities, there are rules of thumb that can be helpful as you consider timing.

If you want to use campaign experience to:

• work for a winning candidate’s official office or become a civil servant or policy expert, you could make your transition with just one campaign cycle of experience depending on the qualifications of your desired role. 
• build a career as a lobbyist, consultant, or issue advocate, you should commit to at least two to three cycles of campaign experience. These careers will value campaign experience most. You’ll also have more time to build a professional network, which will be critical to your success.

Generally, it’ll be possible to make lateral moves from campaigns to other opportunities in politics-adjacent fields the earlier you’re in your career. As you climb the ladder in campaign politics, be mindful of the qualifications you need for your future desired roles, especially if they require subject matter expertise (e.g. knowledge about particular policy issues or policy processes). It’ll likely become more challenging to make lateral career moves later in your career if you don’t have the relevant expertise.

Further reading

• Guide to Working on Political Campaigns, Harvard Law School
• Internships 101: Interning with a Political Campaign, Dartmouth
• A Quick Guide to Working on Political Campaigns, University at Buffalo
• Political Campaign Worker Careers, The Princeton Review 
• The Benefits of Working for a Victorious Political Campaign, ProMarket
• If you care about social impact, why is voting important?
• Quora: How do you start working on a political campaign?, How do you get a job on a political campaign?, Do campaign workers move around from campaign to campaign?