Election 2016 Unit, Part 3: The Campaign Strategy

By Michael Gonchar
Virginia delegates and Clinton supporters on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July. Related Article Damon Winter/The New York Times

This week is Election Week on our blog, and each day we’ve published a new section of our Election Unit.

On Monday we gave an overview of the entire unit, including goals, essential questions and projects. Tuesday’s post suggests ways for students to learn about the candidates by working as investigative reporters. Wednesday’s post explores the issues at stake this election year. Below, we focus on the way the candidates have been running their campaigns.

Mini-Unit 3: The Campaign
Essential Question 3: How Do Presidential Candidates Try to Win the Election?
Projects: Argumentative Essay and Candidate Speech

Overview: For this third mini-unit, students take a step back from the candidates and issues and instead take a closer look at how the candidates run their campaigns.

Students learn about how candidates use different strategies to appeal to voters and win the 270 votes needed in the Electoral College. Continuing in the role of investigative reporters, they analyze different aspects of Hillary Clinton’s and Donald J. Trump’s campaigns and write an argumentative essay (analysis article) making the case for which candidate is running a more effective campaign.

As a second or alternative project, students can focus on one particular campaign strategy: oratorical skills and speech writing. For this project, students write a speech in the voice of one of the candidates in preparation for the mock election.

How to Win an Election

A leading political strategist explains how candidates use the art of storytelling to help swing elections.

By SARAH KLEIN and TOM MASON on February 18, 2016. Photo by Redglass Pictures.

Winning an Election: Ask students to consider the following questions:

  • How do candidates try to win an election?
  • What strategies do they use? How do they try to sway voters?

Then have the class share ideas.

Next watch the eight-minute Op-Doc “How to Win an Election.” What do students think is the central premise of the film, and do they agree? Why?

Based on what they have seen and heard so far, what do they think are the competing stories that Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are trying to tell voters? What is their evidence for this analysis?

Students can keep these ideas in mind as they analyze the Trump and Clinton campaigns.

Analyzing a Campaign Ad: As a class, watch two short television commercials, one representing each campaign. If you would rather analyze a commercial from a past presidential election as a way to practice ad analysis, then The Living Room Candidate is a useful resource for finding and viewing presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to 2012.

Here is a sampling of commercials promoting each candidate (some were created by political action committees) from which teachers can choose.

Pro-Trump Commercials: “The Enemy,” “Two Americas: Immigration,” “ It Takes Two” and “The Difference.”

Pro-Clinton Commercials: “Absolutely,” “Dante,” “Presidential” and “Role Models.”

For each commercial, write down what you see going on in the ad. Are there images of people or places? Are they in color or black-and-white? Are they vivid or grainy? If there are words on the screen, what do they say? Then watch the commercial again. What sounds do you hear? Is there a speaker or narrator? Is there music?

Then think about this: What do the producers of the commercial want you to feel and think? What makes you say that? Do you think the commercial is effective? Why or why not? You may want to use this television commercial analysis chart (PDF) to take notes.

Campaign Strategy Research: Working in pairs, small groups or individually, students research one or more campaign strategies listed below. If you want your students to have the opportunity to get up out of their seats, you might consider setting up research stations around the classroom for students to learn about multiple topics.

You might want to use the handout (PDF) below to help guide student research. It asks students to take notes on how the Trump and Clinton campaigns are using a given campaign strategy, and then to analyze how effectively they think the campaign is using the strategy. This handout might be particularly useful if your students will be writing an argumentative essay comparing the two campaigns.

Resources for Campaign Strategy Research: Below is a list of useful resources for researching four types of campaign strategies. Some of these resources are articles and analysis pieces, while others are the official pages of the Trump and Clinton campaigns.

Fund-Raising, Super PACs and Campaign War Chests

State-by-State Polling and Electoral Math

Campaign Speeches and Debates

Television, Internet and Social Media Campaigns

Project 1 | Argumentative Essay: In the role of investigative reporters, students write an argumentative essay (analysis article) answering the question: Which candidate is running a better campaign? Students choose campaign strategies and compare the effectiveness of the Trump and Clinton campaigns (for example, comparing websites, TV commercials and debate performances).

Students can use their notes from the research handout above to help them find evidence for their essays.

Project 2 | Campaign Speech: In preparation for the mock election, students write a campaign speech directed toward youth voters — in many ways, a persuasive essay about why young people should vote for “me.”

One way to organize the speech is to have students create a theme or thesis that holds the speech together and then choose one or more of the candidate’s positions on issues (already researched in Mini-Unit 2 of this unit) to support the overall thesis. We provide a complete lesson on writing a candidate speech, including ways to think about messaging, oratory and emotion. In addition, the Purdue Online Writing Lab is a helpful resource for using rhetorical strategies for persuasion, like logos, ethos and pathos, to write a more effective speech.

The candidate speech assignment gives students an opportunity to play with rhetoric and language while writing in a candidate’s voice. Some students may struggle with that kind of open-ended writing assignment, so seeing a basic sample outline may help them flesh out their ideas:

Theme: Real Solutions for Real Problems

Issue: Tax Policy

Issue: Immigration

Issue: Health Care

or

Theme: Strengthening Our Economy

Issue: Creating Jobs

Issue: Reforming the Tax Code

Be sure to establish ground rules, though, if students are going to make a speech in a candidate’s voice to ensure that the speeches don’t promote offensive language, as one of the candidates has indeed crossed that line several times during this campaign.

Donald Trump and Little Donald (Eighth-Grade Impressionist)

With voters facing a choice of two celebrity candidates this year, you might consider allowing students to attempt — very thoughtfully — to use satire to make a point about the candidates and their campaigns. For example, Jack Aiello impersonates both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton (along with Ted Cruz, Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders) in his eighth-grade graduation speech. He also performs as “Little Donald” on “The Tonight Show,” alongside Jimmy Fallon playing Mr. Trump.

Presentations and Reflections: Students present their speeches in class. If you plan to hold a mock election, you can have the class select whom they want to represent the candidates at the main event based on the quality of the speeches. With a large class, students can present within smaller groups, and then those groups select who will present in front of the class.

And, at the end of one or both projects, students can answer the following questions:

  • What did you learn about the campaigns in this election that surprised you or that you didn’t know before?
  • Do you think your research findings would help an undecided voter choose a candidate? Why?
  • What do you think about the two candidates so far?

On Friday we will post the Election Unit’s final mini-unit, which lets students decide who they think should be the next president based on the research they completed. Our Friday post also includes instructions on how to hold a mock election in your school.