Down-Ballot Political Campaigns: Winning Local Races with a $25K Digital Budget
Most down-ballot campaigns spend their digital budget on the wrong platforms in the wrong proportions. Here is the allocation that wins city council, school board, and state legislative races.
The Down-Ballot Reality
Down-ballot races — city council, school board, state house and senate, judicial, and competitive municipal positions — are decided by margins that statewide consultants would consider rounding error. A 600-vote swing in a state house district decides the race. A 200-vote swing in a school board contest changes the outcome. At those margins, digital strategy is not optional, but the playbook from statewide campaigns does not translate. A $25,000 digital budget cannot fund the channel diversity and measurement infrastructure a statewide race depends on. It needs a different framework — one built around extreme targeting precision, owned-audience leverage, and creative that punches above its production budget. This piece is that framework.
Start with the Math: Who You Need to Reach
The first step in any down-ballot digital strategy is not picking platforms — it is defining the persuadable universe with mathematical precision. Pull the voter file for the district. Filter to registered voters with a 50-100 percent turnout probability in the relevant election (off-year, primary, general — they are different universes). Within that, identify the persuadable subset: typically soft-leaning opposition voters, true undecideds with high propensity, and your own soft supporters who need turnout reinforcement. For a state house district of 60,000 registered voters, that persuadable universe is often 8,000-15,000 people. That is the addressable target for the entire digital program. Every dollar of the $25,000 budget should be allocated against that specific universe, not against the district's general population. This is the single largest difference between effective and ineffective down-ballot campaigns.
The $25K Allocation
A defensible $25,000 down-ballot allocation for a competitive race in the final 8 weeks looks roughly like this. $10,000 to Meta (Facebook and Instagram combined), running voter-file-targeted persuasion ads in weeks 1-6 and turnout ads in weeks 7-8. $6,000 to addressable CTV through a political-grade DSP, focused on persuasion in the highest-density media consumption households within the persuadable universe. $4,000 to YouTube (TrueView and bumper formats) for persuasion creative that benefits from longer storytelling. $3,000 to Google Search, defending the candidate's name and bidding on key local issue queries and opposition research terms. $2,000 reserved for rapid-response budget, ready to deploy against opposition attacks or breaking news within hours. This allocation is opinionated and tight; it is also the one that has produced consistent wins for down-ballot clients we work with in Arizona.
Creative That Wins Down-Ballot
Down-ballot creative cannot rely on the high production values of statewide campaigns. The budget does not exist, and the audience does not expect it. What works at this level: authentic candidate-to-camera video shot on a quality smartphone with good lighting, clear audio, and a 30-60 second message. Direct testimonials from real constituents — not actors — speaking to a specific local issue. Static carousel ads on Meta that walk through three to five concrete policy positions. Issue-contrast graphics that name the opponent's specific record on a single local issue voters care about. The trap to avoid: trying to look like a statewide campaign on a down-ballot budget. The production gap will read as inauthentic. Lean into local specificity, authentic voice, and policy concreteness — the things expensive statewide creative often loses. Plan for 6-10 creative variants across the campaign, refreshed roughly every 10-14 days as fatigue sets in on the small persuadable universe.
Owned Audiences and Email: The Force Multiplier
The hidden lever in down-ballot digital is the campaign's owned audiences — the email list, SMS subscribers, and social media followers built from day one of the campaign. Every dollar spent on paid acquisition should also be working to grow these lists, because owned-audience contact is effectively free and produces higher persuasion and turnout impact than any paid channel. Wire every ad to a landing page with email and SMS capture. Run lead-generation campaigns for the first 6-8 weeks of the campaign focused specifically on list growth, not direct persuasion. By the time the final 30 days arrive, the campaign should have an email list large enough to meaningfully impact turnout in the persuadable universe through unpaid contact alone. Campaigns that treat their email list as an afterthought leave 10-20 percent of available margin on the table — which in a down-ballot race is often the entire margin of victory.
How Position One Works with Down-Ballot Campaigns
Position One runs digital programs for down-ballot campaigns across Arizona, with experience spanning state legislative, county-level, municipal, and school board races. We are #1 in Arizona for political impression share and have produced winning programs at budgets ranging from $15,000 for tightly-targeted local races to multi-million-dollar statewide allocations. For down-ballot campaigns specifically, we offer fixed-scope packages designed for budgets in the $15,000-$50,000 range, including voter-file integration, full creative production, multi-platform execution, and post-election attribution reporting. If you are managing or consulting on a competitive Arizona down-ballot race for 2026 and want to discuss whether our framework fits your specific district, request a confidential strategy call. All conversations are bound by NDA before any race-specific details are shared.