Wisconsin Campaign Plan Template

A campaign that wins usually has a plan, and a campaign that loses often had a lot of energy and no list. The plan doesn't have to be fancy. It has to fit on one page and tell you what to do this week.

Tony RuffiOct 22, 20268 min read

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This guide gives you a one-page plan you can fill in tonight. By the end of it, you'll know your win number, who your voters are, how to split your week and what to do each month from now to the April 2027 election.

What is a campaign plan, and do you need one?

A campaign plan is a short paper that says how many votes you need, who will give them to you, and what you'll do each week to earn them. You need one for any race, even a small one. Without it, days fill up with busy work and the doors never get knocked.

This article is general information, not legal advice. The dates and rules come from the state, so confirm them with the Wisconsin Elections Commission and your filing officer. That's the clerk, or whichever office takes your papers.

How far back should you plan from?

Start at election day and count backward. For most spring local races in Wisconsin, election day is Tuesday, April 6, 2027, and the plan has to fit between now and then. Four dates are fixed, so write them at the top of your page before anything else.

These come from Wis. Stat. 8.10, 8.11 and 5.02. Some offices and towns work differently, and a primary only happens if your race needs one, so ask your clerk which dates are yours. Our spring election dates article has the full list. Then work backward: the papers take weeks, so your first month is not for yard signs.

How many votes do you need to win?

Find the votes cast in the last race for your seat, divide by two, and add one. Then set your goal a little higher than that, so a slow turnout day doesn't beat you. Your clerk can tell you what turnout was in the last two races for your office, which is better than guessing.

Here's a made-up example, not a real race. Say 4,000 people voted last time. Half is 2,000, so 2,001 wins a two-person race. We'd write 2,200 on the plan as the goal and plan to reach that many people more than once.

That cushion matters. Some Wisconsin races end with only a handful of ballots between the two names, and a plan that aims for the bare minimum has no room for a bad week. If the race has three or more names, the math changes, so ask your clerk if a primary is likely and plan for two finish lines.

What goes on a one-page campaign plan?

Six boxes go on the page: goal, voters, message, money, team and calendar. Each box is a few lines, not a paragraph. If a box takes more than a few lines, you're writing a story, and a plan isn't a story. Here's the page, with what to put in each box.

Write the voters box last, once you know the numbers. It's the one most plans leave blank. If you can't say where your voters live, you can't say where to knock. Our door knocking script and get out the vote articles pick up from here, and our campaign budget article fills in the money box.

How should you spend your week?

Spend every free hour you have on doors. That's the first rule of our plans, and the rest of the week should support it. Meetings, posts and graphics matter, but none of them replace a face on a porch, so nothing on the list below is allowed to eat that time.

Here's how we'd sort a week for a local race:

1. Doors first. Any free time goes to knocking, every spare minute, never just "a couple hours a week."
2. Names second. Write down every person you meet who says yes, so you can reach them again.
3. Money third. Set a short block for asks and thank-yous, and keep your records clean from day one.
4. Look & message fourth. Keep your signs, cards and posts matching, because voters learn a name by seeing the same thing again.
5. Friday check. Spend 15 minutes on the page and move anything that slipped.

Money has rules of its own. Before you take or spend a dollar, read our campaign finance article and ask the Wisconsin Ethics Commission and your filing officer what you need to register and report.

What did a three-way primary teach us about plans?

It taught us that a plan needs more than one finish line. Dave Baker ran for village president of Kronenwetter in 2025 against the sitting village president and one other candidate. We started in late 2024 with his brand, video and social media training. The primary came on February 18, 2025, when the top two advanced, and he finished first. The sitting village president finished last. Then Dave won the April 1 general election by 18 votes, 1,528 to 1,510 (case study).

The biggest mistake we see is a plan built at the last minute. Some candidates wait to write theirs until the race is set and the names are in, and by then they're too late. Build your plan while you're out getting signatures. Then, once the names are locked in and you're officially on the ballot, put it all into action at once.

Look at that timeline as a plan, because that's what it was. Late 2024 was build time. February 18 was the first test. March was the last sprint, and April 1 was the finish. A plan with only the April date on it would have missed the one that mattered first.

The size of your budget doesn't have to be the size of your plan, either. Doug Diny won the 2024 Wausau mayor race, 5,222 votes to 4,798, with about $95,000 spent. The other side reported more than double that, including a reported $190,000 in ads in the last two weeks (case study). We can't say what one choice won it. The lesson for your page is to plan your message and your calendar around what you control, and to write down what you'll do if someone else has more money.

Want a second set of eyes on your plan before you start? Our consulting team works with candidates in every part of Wisconsin, the Northwoods too, from school board to Congress & governor. The first conversation is free.

What does a plan look like from now until April?

It looks like six steps, each with one job to finish. Here's a plan for a spring race that has papers and a primary. Your office may not match every row, so check each date with your clerk, and drop the February row if your race has no primary.

Notice that nothing in the first row is a sign or a logo. Those come after the numbers. Our nomination papers article covers the papers step in more detail.

What do first plans get wrong?

They miss the math, skip the money line and put too much on the page. These are the misses we see most often when a first-time candidate shows us a plan, and every one of them is easy to fix on paper before the race starts.

• No number. "Win" isn't a goal. A number is.
• Too many priorities. If everything is first, nothing is.
• Starting with signs. Signs help, but doors come first.
• No names beside jobs. "Someone should do it" means no one will.
• No second finish line. If a primary is possible, plan for it.
• A plan nobody checks. A paper in a drawer does nothing.

Print it, tape it up, check it on Fridays

Print the page, tape it where you'll see it every day and check it every Friday for 15 minutes. Ask three questions: did we hit the number of doors we set, did every job get done by its date, and what moves to next week? That's the whole habit.

If a week goes badly, don't rewrite the plan. Fix the step that slipped and keep the goal where it is. The candidates who finish well are rarely the ones with the best plan. They're the ones who looked at it most often.

Want a hand building yours? We'll talk it through with you at 715-314-3250, and the first conversation is free.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Dates and rules depend on your office and can change, so confirm them with the Wisconsin Elections Commission and your filing officer.

Fact-checked October 22, 2026 against Wisconsin statutes on spring election dates, read October 16, 2026, and the Bluejack case studies for the Kronenwetter and Wausau 2024 races.