This is not about any particular candidate or election so I put it here.
Candidates make stops in various states at campaign rallies. In the old days before mass media, whistlestop tours and stump speeches might have attracted the curious and still-undecided. But today everyone knows about the candidate, and the people who attend the rallies are the ones who already support the candidate. How do these rallies attract more votes in the state where the rally occurs? Or is it just a way to get more news coverage, showing all of their cheering supporters?
True, the great majority of people who attend the rally are already supporters.
Ripple effects are important. Local news will cover the event. Now, local non main stream media will also cover it. Positive or negative. A candidate who does not hold rallies in the area will seem unconcerned with those voters. That can be a very big thing. A voter on the fence may take it badly that a candidate did not think it worth their time to go there.
Actually being in an area will get a lot more buzz on several levels.
A candidate has to be very careful to tailor their message to that area though. A presidential candidate has to have a fairly wide range of policies for a large disparate country. Read the room.
I assume it was always about this. It was a way to get your candidate and their stump speech as the first item on the local nightly news. Which your average swing state undecided voter is much more likely to see.
I also suggest there’s the usual coke-pepsi zero sum game at work.
If State X is a swing state and candidate A comes through on a campaign tour while Candidate B does not, A will gain marginal votes over B from the effort. So B has to show up with a campaign tour to offset the effect of A’s work.
OTOH, if A had stayed away, and therefore B had stayed away, the final outcome would probably be about the same as if both had showed up.
Even within the so-called “swing states”, there are those that are easier to swing A’s or B’s way. A should focus on the former and B on the latter.
I’d guess that rallies also act as a way of getting names, phone numbers and addresses for both campaign donation requests but also things like door knocking and other boots-on-the-ground stuff. Sure, you were planning to vote for Candidate but now, after hearing them live and being all jazzed up on rally endorphins, you’re willing to sign up for knocking on doors or passing around petitions or whatever for the next four Saturdays.
I think that seeing people in one’s immediate area cheering for the candidate might have an impact on those whose immediate social circle is all (at least openly) in favor of the other; especially if the other candidate’s trying to convince voters that only “Those People™” Way Over There disagree with them.
Winning an election is about 10% getting undecideds to break your way and 90% getting voters who are already inclined to support you to actually turn out to vote. Rallies, yard signs, mailers, block walking, phone banking, etc. are aimed at building enthusiasm among your natural supporters so that they’ll actually get off their butts and vote on election day.
All of these rallies include endorsement speeches by influential locals. Bob in Appleton, WI might not have a favored candidate until he sees his favorite player for the Packers giving an endorsement on the local news.
I agree with what others are indicating that it boosts the enthusiasm of your campaign that ripples out through coverage in the news that your message is being heard and received well. That you’re actively getting out in front of the public, and it drives soundbites and creates narratives if the candidate does it well.
Conversely if they don’t then it can be a disaster as for example Trump does a lot of rallies, says a lot of nonsense about Hannibal Lector etc which make him look idiotic and something to laugh at, and then muses about being a dictator which makes people not want to put him back in.
I think Biden’s biggest problem with his age was he could not do the necessary campaign mileage which is a shame as going around the country and being an old-school retail politician used to be his best attribute. He would do that for Obama masterfully. But time took its toll on him. Harris just by doing several rallies in the last two weeks has changed the perception of the race in which Democrats are enthused and Trump looks like the really old guy.
That said Romney 2012 thought they had a great shot at the election because his rallies were growing in size and Romney signs outside houses were selling faster than Obama ones. In the end that didn’t matter as if Obama lost some of his enthusiastic support from 2008 he still had the support of his base to turn out.
The Obama campaign broadly credited his primary win over Hilary to his decision to visit as many states as possible. His delegates came in large part from flyover states that other campaigns overlooked (and the first real online fundraising effort).
The biggest effect may well be the get-out-the-vote effect. I don’t think there is much the campaigns can do to change people’s minds (if any), but to stroke their enthusiasm.
A lot of people feel that Hillary lost in 2016 because she spent too much time campaigning in hopeless states like Florida and ignored must-win states like Penna. It was when the latter was called for Trump that I realized it was all over, turned off the TV and went to bed.
Florida was the fifth-closest state in 2016. It was entirely plausible that it could have ended up being the most important state. Trump only won it by 1.2%.