There’s a university in, I believe WI, that studies elections and has since the Great Depression.
Voters come in two types, informed and uninformed.
The uninformed vote for the following reasons, in order from highest to lowest:
1. Name ID - they recognize the candidate’s name.
2. Name Association - Something about the name is familiar to them (e.g. My third grade teacher’s name was Smith, I liked her, I’ll vote for Smith, or, I’m Italian, that’s an Italian name, vote.)
3. For or against all Democrats/Republicans; party label.
4. For or against all incumbents.
5. Who the hell knows.
IF THE VOTER knows ANYTHING about the candidate, even 1 issue the candidate supports/opposes, then they are an informed voter.
The breakdown is very consistent: 15% of voters are informed voters.
Do you see why you must have name ID parity before any of your issues matter? If the incumbent has a 70/30 name ID advantage over you, he’ll get to 50% without discussing a single issue. 60/40 is still an inside straight for the incumbent.
If you understand this, it means that any successful race has to really be two races: a race for the LIV votes and one for the informed votes.
The informed votes are important because they are the influentials. Everybody here probably qualifies. As elections approach, people ask you how to vote. They do so because they know that you have a passion for politics and they perceive that translates to you having a more informed opinion. The 15% can have a very large influence on the electorate.
The other race is strictly name ID. THIS is why politicians send our mailers with pretty pictures of their families with almost no usable position information (except that they are “conservative” in a republican primary, because every republican is conservative at election time).
Your campaign on one side is strictly getting your name out there.
On the other side, you have to go to the Republican Party and other campaign type events, meet local elected officials etc. You have to go after the insiders on the positions.
A couple things ;
Latham moved into his current district for the 2012 election, so you might want to play up the “carpetbagger” angle.
I would contact Steve King and Fred Grandy for guidance about the district.