A political insider’s view of election campaign ground game

Voting day in Ontario is nearly upon us. Since the provincial election began on May 4, Canada's National Observer has covered the province's four main parties on the campaign trail.

To better understand what happens inside an election campaign, we reached out to Sheila Copps, who served as MPP for Ontario's Hamilton Centre riding in the 1980s before entering federal politics. Copps was our first female deputy prime minister and is best known for her contributions as the minister of Canadian heritage.

Here's what she had to say on what makes a successful election campaign.

So we have a provincial election coming up. I'm hoping to pull the sheet back and show the everyday Canadian what happens when you run a campaign and how a party could recover after a previous loss. For example, in the last election, the provincial Liberal Party lost party status, right?

Sheila Copps: Yes, they’d been in for 16 years. I think it was four elections, and usually, people are pretty sick of you after four elections. Their campaign ended faster, with (former Ontario Liberal leader Kathleen) Wynne’s announcement that she was going to resign before the campaign ended. People thought she had already pulled out, so they didn't know who to vote for.

So that's probably the biggest fall.

Well, actually, no. When Kim Campbell ran in 1993 against Jean Chrétien (in the federal election), that was an even bigger loss. In 1993, they went from a majority government to two seats. That's probably the biggest story of defeat in the history of Canadian politics.

Tell me what happens in a provincial campaign.

Sheila Copps: In Ontario, it depends on the size of the riding. You're usually talking between 100,000 to 120,000 people in the large ridings — not voters, but people. If you distill that down, you have to reach out to 50,000 or 60,000 people in your campaign.

In Canadian campaigns, you can only spend about the equivalent of a postage stamp per voter, maybe a little bit more, but not much more.

You cannot exceed it. If you do, you lose the election, and you risk going to jail. In one case, former MP Dean del Mastro ended up getting convicted for overspending.

Anyway, so let's say your budget is $70,000. So, in the olden days, when I was there, you would take a percentage of that and use it for radio ads because that was the best way to reach the greatest number of people with the least cost. You couldn't really afford television, the budgets were so low. So radio was the way to go. Now, they're probably doing a lot on social media.

What was the first step of your ground game?

Sheila Copps: The first thing we would do is get our signs. Then, you would take a map of your riding and divide it into polls, which are decided by Elections Canada. In every poll, someone goes door-to-door to talk to the voters, identifying who's voting and how. In 1984, when I won my election, I had 1,000 volunteers. That's the kind of on-the-ground firepower you need in a tough election.

Even a fantastic candidate will only give you a five per cent edge. Between five and 10 per cent can be done on the ground. If it's a sweep, a lousy candidate can get elected because, in a sweep, everybody comes in who's running under the winning party's ticket. But in a tight race, on-the-ground organization can make the difference.

What’s the next step?

Sheila Copps: Identify the voters. In many elections, people say, “I never hear from anybody,” so reach out to them. Social media lists are much more robust than the lists would have been in our time.

When you get the names of the voters from the Elections Ontario list, try to identify how they're voting. Don’t ask somebody point-blank how they are voting; go to their door and have a conversation with them. If they hate your candidate, strike them off the list. If they like them, mark them down and make sure somebody gets them to vote on voting day. And if they're undecided, that's the group you will want to focus on. In the olden days, people didn't switch parties very often. Now, the undecided could run between 40 and 60 per cent, which is a relatively new phenomenon.

By the time the election comes around, you should have a map of those ridings and a list of every person voting for you. So then, on election day, it is the job of the election day chair to have somebody in place to knock on every door, making sure that they get out to vote before closing time. That's the key to a winning strategy. Because if you drive out, let's say, 300 extra people, and it's a tight race, that could mean the difference between winning and losing the election.

But to do that, you need to build a very strong volunteer base. Usually, that happens before the election. Building that volunteer network and sustaining it motivates the constituency work for the next four years, too.

How do you attract volunteers and keep them motivated?

Sheila Copps: We used to have a pig roast in the parking lot of our campaign headquarters because it smelled, and everybody would come to see what was going on. We’d give out pig sandwiches and recruit people from the neighbourhood for the election campaign.

When you're in there for long days, we would have a pot of chili or something cooking. So people would also come in, get a hot meal and help. Sometimes people would bring in food, like potlucks, which weren't included as a cost.

You know you're going to lose the election when you're not getting volunteers and even your regular list of devoted supporters dwindles. You might have a rally, and instead of getting 300 people, you get 30 people. There's a bit of a message there.

After a volunteer base gets low, new people need to be recruited. If I could use the analogy of a forest fire ― even a controlled burn goes through a forest and everything burns to the ground. The new shoots become very robust and start growing quickly. And that's what happens after a bad blowout. The party will start recruiting new people who are super excited because this is often their first election. And those are the ones who are going to carry you over. The new people, the new blood, often build you back up.

Does this happen in every riding?

Sheila Copps: Some ridings are very active and have active future MPs who people get excited about and want to be with. Others don’t. The level of activity at the local level depends on how popular and how organized the candidate is.

In the main office, you need to have about 10 or 12 people in the office. And then, in the evening, you ramp it up for phone calls. So you don't just go door-to-door, but you run phone banks, social media and other blitzes and things.

The biggest, most important focus is to make sure people vote. In a provincial general election, 40 per cent of people don't even bother voting. So if you can be the one to get your portion of the 60 per cent of the poll to vote, then you're going to win.

How important is the leader of the party?

Sheila Copps: It's interesting. Ontario is a bit of a strange province because the political media in Ontario tend to be focused on Ottawa and less on Queen's Park, which gives more opportunities to opposition parties. They're not very leader-driven, which means that people will tend to go for the party they have felt most comfortable with in an election. So because the NDP doesn’t have the deep history that the Liberals have, even though they outstripped the Liberals in a bunch of ridings, they can’t win. Party roots are deep. And it doesn't matter what you do. People go back to what they feel comfortable with.

If you were running the campaign this year for the provincial campaign, what would your catchphrase or slogan be?

Sheila Copps: If I were trying to figure out the Liberal slogan, it would not be against anyone but that the Liberal Party is the party for everyone. Inclusive and reaching out — not necessarily saying it’s the party for everyone, but working for everyone because “working” includes the idea of getting work, which people like, and working for everyone. It would mean that the Tories are looking out for one specific group and the NDP another group, but we're the party that embraces everyone. So in a way, you're saying something negative about the others without being negative.

As we round the final corner to the election, what should we expect to see in a campaign?

Sheila Copps: They need to get as much mileage as they can out of the debate. And on the ground, I would tell our people not even to pick up the paper in the morning. Just keep working on the ground. That's all. Every riding that works on the ground supplements what's happening in the central campaign, so don't waste time worrying about it or crying over it. Just keep on working. The more people you identify and get to the polls, the better chance you have of winning your riding. All you can do is win your riding. So that's the focus.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.