Insiders talk campaigning during COVID-19: ‘A hands-on operation’

Campaigns are complicated.

There’s a dizzying amount of things to do, from organizing volunteers to finding temporary office space to scheduling events and everything else involved with trying to get someone elected in a short amount of time.

And the COVID-19 pandemic just makes it worse, because now candidates need to break through the barrage of new information and changes that have taken place in the past 18 months to reach potential voters.

Aside from the logistics, there are health concerns.

“He even encountered a gentleman, who kept his distance, but announced he was infected with COVID,” Michael McAteer said of his candidate for Saskatoon West, Dr. Ruben Rajakumar.

McAteer is Rajakumar’s communications director, and he was quick to point out Rajakumar quickly got tested for the disease.

“There hasn’t been the same period of time to gather momentum and do fundraising and so on,” he said of the six-week campaign.

“So it’s pretty much a hands-on operation.”

He told Global News he’s had a harder time securing volunteers. He also said the campaign has focused on social media to reach people in lieu of more traditional election staples like lawn signs, rallies and handshakes.

The campaign manager for NDP Saskatoon West candidate Robert Doucette said the same thing.

“We’re even getting notice that future events will be muted. We’re not going to have the traditional election evening party after we hear the results,” Stacey Dyck-Jiricka said.

She said her job hasn’t changed, though, despite the challenges the pandemic presents. She said she’s still focused on highlighting her candidate.

She also said the campaign was starting to get much busier.

“Folks were not really thinking about politics, they were on summer holidays. And now I think the game is on.”

Global News reached out to the Conservative candidates in the city — all of whom are incumbents. One campaign manager declined an interview and no other candidates or campaign staff responded.

Ken Coates, a University of Saskatchewan public policy professor, says it’s not the shortened campaign that could hinder candidates convincing voters. It’s the lack of traditional activities, like rallies and handshakes, that could set them back.

“You can do everything by email and everything by Twitter, you can do everything by website pages,” he said, speaking about how parties can show off their platforms and even candidates.

“What you cannot do is you cannot build excitement.”

Without those opportunities to connect with voters and convince them you’re the best candidates, Coates said, it becomes harder to attract support from people who weren’t already going to vote for you.

Doing so could mean electoral victory or defeat with such tight poll numbers.

And it can be even harder because the leaders of the federal parties are spending most of their time in battleground ridings that aren’t in Saskatchewan.

McAteer’s and Dyck-Jiricka’s hopes are still high, they say, but they’ll have to wait until Elections Canada announces results to see if they’ve changed anyone’s minds.

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