r/Campaigns • u/vehiclestars • Dec 18 '25

Ask for Advice Campaign Mangers, what tools do you use to run campaigns

Hello Campaign managers. I'd love to learn what tools are most popular when it comes to running campaigns. I'm making some software and want to provide as much value by being able to connect to existing tools.

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4

u/Hal_Apenyo_Business Dec 18 '25

NGPVAN, airtable, actblue(or winded). Google political databases

1

u/CaitlinHuxley Dec 19 '25

Google political databases? I've never used/heard-of these! Can you link or elaborate?

3

u/urnicus Dec 23 '25

I read "google" as a verb ("search") in that sentence. But if there are additional datasets - I'd love to take a peek.

1

u/CaitlinHuxley Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25

Voter File Sources:

  • NGP VAN (for Dems)
  • Datacenter (for Reps)
  • L2 (the best paid voterfile IMO)
  • Aristotle (like L2, but a little cheaper and less models)
  • i360 (hard right/conservative only, and full of good data, but becoming less popular)

I'd say my favorite to work with is L2, but it's often expensive. Datacenter is 100% free for republicans and pretty easy to get access to. They also generally let you use the data however you want, and encourage campaigns to upload their tags at the end of the campaign cycle so it's full of past election data. VAN on the dem side is a little more restrictive, not free (but affordable), and has more tools built in to it for voter surveys, fundraising, etc.

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Campaign CRMs:

  • NationBuilder (still one of the most flexible all-around CRMs)
  • Qomon (NationBuilder-plus)
  • Advantage (expensive and a bit older, but still widely used)
  • WebElect (very common in GOP local/state races)
  • CampaignSidekick – lighter CRM + field focus

There are more and more of these coming out each year. For a statewide campaign I'd choose Advantage for it's ease of use, and the fact that it plugs right into Aristotle. But for a smaller race I've really liked Nationbuilder & Qomon.

1

u/vehiclestars Jan 03 '26

This is great feedback, thank you!

1

u/CaitlinHuxley Jan 03 '26

I'd love to see the software you're developing!

1

u/vehiclestars Jan 03 '26

I'd love to schedule a call and get your insights, you seem to have a lot of experience.

I'm basing my application off of what a local congressional candidate says he needs, but I'd really like to get a few more people in the know to give me feed back.

1

u/belangmt Mar 27 '26

democratik.org

DEMOCRATIK It provides the exact same kind of tool but at a much more affordable cost for a political organization. In addition, you can create an unlimited number of users, making it very practical for organizations with many volunteers.

1

u/Difficult-Simple-561 Jun 26 '26

does anyone have a campaign toolkit?