How to Win An Election: Geography

This is part of a series of posts on local elections. (see Part 1)

Not all districts are created equal. Before the official campaign starts, your team should have already charted the "lay of the land" through an initial survey. This includes basic information like voting population and its demographics and candidate specific details like voter awareness and trust.

Territories

The initial survey should reveal 3 types of territories: bailiwick, neutral, and hostile.

Bailiwick - if election day is tomorrow you will win this district by a landslide. Half the voters here share your last name, you own a factory that employs half the voters, you saved this district from a tsunami, etc.

Neutral - this district is a potential battleground. Specially if it has a high voting population. Neutralness could often be due to apathy, so voter education is also a must in this district.

Hostile - this is the enemy's bailiwick. Expect to be heckled if you conduct a sortie here. Your campaign posters are likely to be torn the next day. The most effective solution against a hostile territory is voter apathy: "if I can't have your vote then no one else should".

Historical data can also prove useful in predicting voting patterns. A district might have a high voting population but history might indicate that only a handful show up on election day. Such apathetic districts could be someone else's trump card if they manage to dispel voter apathy. Obama's election success has been attributed to the typically indifferent youth vote.

The geographical data should dictate your campaign strategy. Which districts to focus on or neglect, which places need voter education, which to discourage voter turnout etc.

Conclusion

The resulting landscape would resemble a theatre of war. Thus the game won't be unlike your typical war game of capturing and defending territories.

Personally this is what makes politics exciting, it's warfare minus the crudeness of death and killing. Well, most of the time anyway.

This is also one of the big challenges of making a game about political campaigns, how do you make a war game fun without guns and killing ?