So, in the spirit of buying the good will of all three of our readers, we’ll venture into the digital wilds; we’ll cast our gaze upon what passes for digital presence, so you don’t have to.

It’s About What It’s For, a Primer in Campaign Websites

More than any other field, the need for click-to-action conversion is paramount for a political campaign. The action varies (usually between mailing list signups and/or low-dollar donations,) but the result is a micro-action in the direction of what the campaign actually wants: a vote on Election Day. Additionally, campaigns are inherently time-limited. That is, the digital assets associated with them are valid under severe time pressures not found in other fields.

Think of it like this: A political website is like a landing page to generate leads, except the leads you generate could literally make or break someone’s future/the political landscape of the state or nation.

No big deal, right?

Since this is such a critical component of campaigning in the modern age, let’s see how the Democrats in NV04 are doing. Starting from the bottom. . .

Lucy Flores

If minimalist is your thing, this is the site for you. A (post-haircut) headshot, logo, and six links—seven if you count the erroneously linked logo at the top. One of which links to a .pdf that I’m pretty sure I need to sign and. . .OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU LINKING TO A PDF?! Seriously, someone took the time to install Wordpress for you, and this is what you do with it?

The “SIGN UP” and “DONATE” links are (completely unsurprisingly) a complete break in style from the, please recognize the generosity here, “landing” page. The ActBlue donation page, though unstyled, is not nearly the eyesore that the one from VAN/NGP.

You’d think that the time saved in using a canned VAN/NGP form could have been sunk in to making that form match the rest of the site, as it were.

You’d be wrong.

In the interest of fairness, the site works well on tablet and smartphone-sized screens, with the interface scaling nicely.  

Still, linking to a .pdf when your site has, literally, no other content? That is pretty unforgivable.

Susie Lee

The question one everyone’s lips: Is Susie Lee even trying? She’s got the means to self-finance, she even showed up on KNPR. But what is she actually doing with the limited amount of road she has left leading up to Primary Day? Not running her website is definitely one of those things.

A nice modern-ish design for an all-natural nutritional supplement company, or maybe a freelance life-coach/bracelet enthusiast. Definitely not for a political candidate. This site is sadness-inducing not because it is a failure, but in that the potential is there but underutilized. Like a Ferrari sitting in a traffic jam. Speaking of jam, we would totally buy the artisan strawberry jam that this site wants to sell us, if Susie Lee would just let it.

Bad choices abound here: No Party ID, Brown, The Box Around the Crazy Mountain Logo, The Fact That Her Eyes Keep Following Us Around The Room...

See? DO YOU SEE?!

All of this is before you even get off the landing page. Yeah, it is not a pretty picture.

Ruben Kihuen

Speaking of pictures, can this guy take a bad one? Because we have it on good authority that it is, in fact, not possible. Seriously, the guy is photogenic, even in what would be awkward for someone else, he looks like this:

He’s also the only candidate in this race with a demonstrable understanding of what a campaign website is for: donations and mailing list signups, hitting both “above the fold.” Kihuen’s site goes the extra mile of integrating the candidate’s Facebook page for some low-overhead content on the landing page. Strangely, though a link to his Twitter account is present, his Timeline is absent. 

Then, there’s the main contact form, or should we say the main Google Form.

Wow. Remember that this is Wordpress we’re talking about. This use of Google Forms is just off-putting and completely unnecessary. This form is an abomination made more of an eyesore when cast next to a candidate who is anything but.

Website? What? Totally don’t care, just keep looking at us like that. . .

TL;DR Version

All three Democratic candidates in NV04 are making some amateur-hour mistakes on their sites right now. With Susie Lee already considered an also-ran, these missteps hurt Lucy Flores more than they do Ruben Kihuen. Kihuen’s site is also the best of the bunch from both a content and presentation standpoint. 

For an insurgent candidate (like Flores) a strong web presence is a cheap and effective way to convey a larger, stronger organization than actually exists: an effective strategy when competing against a well established candidate like Kihuen.

But, Websites Aren’t the Only Thing

Correct! Which is why next week we’ll begin digging deeper into the rest of the candidates’ digital presence, channel by channel.