Campaign Rally – Do Rallies Boost Turnout?

Nov 4, 2024

—

size of bubbles reflect number of rallies

Do rallies really matter? Some might criticize the resources spent on campaign rallies, pointing out that, as few undecided voters attend them – it could be considered “preaching to the choir”. Rallies, however, aren’t about trying to persuade the people in the room, but about generating media coverage and mobilizing your base to vote and volunteer. Campaigns keep lists of those who have RSVPed for a rally and use them to reach out to those people for fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and to encourage them to vote early.

In this new polarized environment with fewer and fewer truly undecided “swing” voters, presidential elections are increasingly won not by persuading undecided voters, but by turning out the base. This makes the voter mobilization opportunity from rallies an especially effective campaign tool. So, we focused our analysis on whether rallies impact voter turnout by examining early vote data from L2.

To do this, we mapped every campaign rally Trump and Harris held since Harris entered the race in late July and assembled L2 Early Vote data for every vote cast in every county every day since early voting started. We then compared the number of early votes cast 2 days before a rally versus the 2 days on and after by county. For each rally, we compared that change in early votes in that county to the nationwide early vote change in that same time period. We found that the median county with a rally saw a +219% increase in early votes cast in the 2 days after the rally whereas early votes only went up +23% nationally — a ten-fold difference.

Of course, there are some confounding factors. The campaigns schedule rallies in key target areas – the same areas where they are likely to have active GOTV operations, so we don’t know exactly how much of the increase in early vote is specifically because of a rally. Still, it seems clear that rallies have a positive impact.

So, are rallies an effective turnout tool? Yes, clearly. Even with potential confounding variables, the massive (x10) bump in early vote ballot returns suggests at least some causal impact from rallies. Thus even in this new digital campaign era of podcast interviews and Instagram reels, old-school campaign rallies are still crucial.

Have questions or want to talk strategy?

Call us at 202-548-2562

We’d love to help you put these insights to work.

Track the evolving political landscape with insights delivered straight to your inbox