Campaign Strategy

A practical guide to allocating actions and money across the three phases of every race: build, contest, close. For the vote math that ultimately decides elections see Election Mechanics; this page is about what to do in what order.

The Three Phases

Every election cycle — for every office — runs through three strategic phases from your character's perspective:

1. Build (pre-primary): Accumulate Political Influence, Favorability, donor base, party alignment. No election is open yet.
2. Contest (primary + early general): You're a declared candidate. Sustain base stats while running the specific race.
3. Close (final 4 turns of general): Everything compounds. The campaign season multiplier kicks in. Weighted snapshots fall.

Most players lose races by misallocating across phases — over-campaigning in the build phase and running out of gas in the close, or over-fundraising and under-contesting. This page is about getting that right.

Core Principle

Every action should move you closer to winning your next election. Early game: stats foundation. Mid game: positioning. Late game: turnout and closing pressure.

Action Allocation by Situation

The Campaign Page (Upgrades & Budget)

Once you're a candidate, your campaign page (/campaign/[id]) gives you a separate budget with upgrades. This is distinct from your personal Campaign Funds.

Fundraising Levels (10 tiers)

Your campaign has a fundraising level 0–10 that generates passive income per turn:

General phase multiplier: Upgrade costs are 1.5× higher once the election enters the general phase. Front-load upgrades during primaries.

Strategic Upgrades (4 dimensions)

Each upgrade tier has up to 5 levels (or 10 for Fundraising):

Maintenance is deducted from campaign funds each turn. If projected funds can't cover next turn's maintenance, levels auto-downgrade — Media first, then Ground Game. No refund.

Opposition Research

Lets you drain an opponent's Favorability passively. Retargeting has a 6-hour cooldown.

• Level 1: −0.5%/turn to target
• Level 5: −2.5%/turn to target

In the final 4 turns the effect doubles (2× campaign-season multiplier). A Level 3 Opposition Research in the closing sprint is effectively −3%/turn on the target, which over 4 turns is −12 Favorability — often race-deciding.

Campaign Actions

Your campaign generates its own per-turn action pool:

• Base: Every campaign earns at least 1 action/turn.
• Endorsements: NPP and player endorsements (presidential only) add actions via 1 + floor(sqrt(endorsements) × 3). 9 endorsements ≈ 10 actions/turn.

Campaign actions are spent only on upgrades, not on regular character actions.

Party Organization

Party organization (0–100) in your state gives a vote-pool multiplier:

• Formula: 1.0 + (stateOrg / 100) × 0.6
• Range: 1.0× at org=0, 1.6× at org=100
• No penalty — low org gives baseline 1.0×

Investing in your state party's organization pays off for every candidate in your party who runs in that state. See Party Building for the chair-side tools.

Fog of War

Opponents don't see your exact upgrade levels — they see fogged estimates:

• Public (anyone): variance ±3 levels. If you're at level 5, they see 2–8.
• Party members: variance ±1 level. If you're at level 5, they see 4–6.

Fog updates every turn during campaign processing. Don't rely on opponent display numbers — they're noisy.

Campaign Season Multiplier (Final 4 Turns)

The single most important time mechanic. In the final 4 turns before an election closes, these effects automatically double:

• Media Spending favorability boost
• Opposition Research drain
• Canvassing boost
• (Presidential) Travel favorability gain

No player action required — the multiplier activates based on the election timer.

Strategic implication: Hold heavy spending for the final 4 turns. A burst of ads, canvassing, and Opposition Research at this point is worth roughly 2× the equivalent spend earlier.

Budget Management

At the campaign page → Budget tab:

• Income vs spending over time
• Category breakdown (what your money went to)
• Per-turn net income

Red flags:

• Maintenance > income. Next turn auto-downgrade fires.
• Funds negative. You've overspent. You're alive but can't upgrade until income digs you out.
• Income declining — usually means you upgraded fundraising late, got taxed by party, or the opposition ramped Opposition Research.

Phase-Specific Tactics

Build phase

• Get Donor Base to Level 3 ($75k + $100k = $175k investment, 12 actions) — permanent compounding income.
• Hit Favorability 65 via 3–5 ads.
• Push Political Influence to 40+ through daily Campaign actions.
• Join a party; invest ~2 weeks real-time to push Party Influence up.
• Watch opponent candidacy declarations. If an NPP declares in the next primary, prepare accordingly.

Primary phase

• Campaign aggressively in-state — every +1 PI converts to ~0.25 primary score points.
• Keep Favorability 70+ — each point is worth 0.35 primary score points.
• Request NPP endorsements (align with party).
• Don't attack primary rivals.

Early general

• Front-load upgrades (no 1.5× multiplier on primary-phase upgrades).
• Full Demographic Poll to diagnose weak groups.
• Target ads and canvassing to weak groups.
• NPP endorsements are worth more in general than primary.

Final sprint (last 4 turns)

• Burst campaign actions to peak PI.
• Burst ads to peak Favorability.
• Canvass aligned demographics (2× multiplier).
• Opposition Research drains 2× on target.
• Log in hourly. Every turn matters.

What Not to Do

• Don't over-buy ads. Above Favorability 75 diminishing returns are severe. $100k for +0.5 Favorability is terrible value.
• Don't canvass misaligned demographics. At 6+ Manhattan distance you get 10% of base effect.
• Don't maintain high Ground Game / Media Spending tiers when you can't afford maintenance. Auto-downgrade costs you the investment with no refund.
• Don't upgrade in general if you can upgrade in primary. 1.5× multiplier applies to general-phase upgrades.
• Don't attack everything that moves. Infamy drain compounds, attack failure chance grows with your Infamy.

Related

• Election Mechanics — Vote math.
• Primaries · General Elections — Phase-specific rules.
• Fundraising & Ads — Money flow mechanics.
• Canvassing — Turnout boosting.
• Demographics & Targeting — Appeal math and group composition.
• Campaign Manager — UI walkthrough of /campaign/[id].
• Primary vs General Tactics — Pivoting between phases.
• Party Building — Growing your party's org.