Pros and Cons of Running a Slate of Candidates Online

A slate website is a way of promoting multiple candidates running for a multi-seat election. The candidates are typically from the same party or align together on major campaign issues. In essence, they become a ‘slate’ of candidates, hoping to win an election as a group.

“A slate is a group of candidates that run in multi-seat or multi-position elections on a common platform.” – Wikipedia

Running slates of political candidates is popular because it allows politicians to reach out to different groups and address their concerns with different policy options.

The positives of running a candidate slate

Slates are often created early in the election process. The formation of slates allows candidates’ to campaign together by sharing a common slogan, campaign materials and promotional efforts. It tells voters that the candidates work well with each other and share common positions on major issues.

A multiple-candidate website can be used as a hub to introduce the candidates and lead voters to related websites and other online material. Rather than three or four websites for each political candidate, there is efficiency in promoting a single website. It can be a focal point for advertising and online fundraising. This tactic often works well for issue-based or grassroot campaigns.

Obviously, it costs less to build a single site than to have each candidate create their own.

Slate websites also work well for local political parties. Parties usually have a general platform, and they promote individual candidates by featuring short biographies and linking out to individual websites, if they have one.

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The negatives of running a candidate slate online

It may be difficult for voters to square the candidate’s differing views on certain issues. This assumes, of course, that the candidates have more than just a simple bio and ‘share’ all the issue pages. In our experience, it’s unlikely that everyone will agree entirely on a single set of issue positions.

Also, if each candidate is fundraising separately, collecting donations through a shared site can be tricky. This leads to a few questions:

• Does every candidate have their own fundraising page?
• How do you deal with the candidates that have fewer resources to run?
• Do donors have to give multiple times if they want to support the entire slate?
• What happens when one popular candidate overshadows the others?

On a practical level, it can be difficult to get content or updates on the website. Even a single political organization can have a hard time updating a website. If every candidate requires their approval before changes to the website can be made, nothing will get updated. That’s why in either case, we recommend assigning a web coordinator to handle updates.

Finally, sharing a site limits the freedom of the candidates to each ‘do their own thing’. Even if one or two decide to really work their part of the website, they may end up overshadowing the other candidates who post less material on the site.

The truth is that not everyone will win

Keep in mind that running a slate of candidates does not mean that all or none will win. We’ve seen instances where half the slate has won, and half did not. Similar candidates, similar positions, but some win and some lose.

Particularly in local elections, success often comes down to how well particular a candidate is known and liked (or disliked).

Our recommendation is that each candidate should have their own website where they control their own messaging and donor experience. It’s fine if someone want to be part of a separate slate website, but any bio links should point to the candidate’s individual website.

Simply trying to ride the coattails of others is a risky strategy.

Ultimately, a politician wins or loses on his or her own merits. Whether a slate of candidates should combine online efforts or not depends entirely on the circumstances.

If you a single candidate or you are running with others, Online Candidate provides a great political website platform. Full-featured, easy to use, and backed with exclusive campaign resources.