Before the coronavirus pandemic, political candidates knocked on doors, attended community meetings and held in-person conversations to lure voters.
But now they’re relying heavily on phone calls and online forums instead.
The move to life online has benefits and drawbacks. Voters who may not have shown up in person are accessing online forums, even well after the events. But voters who like to engage candidates have lost the opportunity to corral them to pitch ideas or ask follow-up questions before the June 9 primary.
During online forums, candidates are discovering moderators can easily silence them if their answers run long.
"I prefer the personal interaction," said Keybo Taylor, a candidate for sheriff in Gwinnett County, who was muted during a recent forum when one of his answers went over the moderator's time allotment. "Telling someone you need to wrap it up is a little more courteous than hitting the mute button."
Organizations that had long hosted in-person political events now must worry about candidates’ sound quality and lighting setups as they move online. They’re also wondering how to get voters to engage. And they’re dealing with technical glitches and learning curves for both the candidates and themselves.
The Atlanta Press Club considered scrapping its normal candidate debates for prerecorded responses to questions that would be edited and posted online, said Lauri Strauss, the debate organizer. With fewer opportunities for candidates to gather at Rotary clubs and other community meetings, she said it seemed more important than ever to have candidates answer questions from journalists and engage with each other. The Press Club is holding 10 debates May 3 and 4 for five seats in Congress, a Public Service Commissioner and the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate.
She said there are some things that will be harder to replicate online, such as organic interactions between candidates. The debates’ format has not changed, so candidates will still be able to ask each other direct questions as they participate from home. At times, they will have to raise their hands and hope to be unmuted if they want to jump in; they won’t be able to interject as they would if everyone was in the same room.
“It’s just going to be different,” Strauss said. “They’re not going to be able to interact as much as usual.”
TeKesha Wideman-Smith, who lives near Buford, enjoys the interactions between candidates when she attends events in person. She missed the live audience in the Gwinnett forum for Democratic candidates for sheriff and district attorney. She noted some people were commenting on Facebook — including Sheriff Butch Conway, who is not running for reelection — but it was no substitute for the applause and quiet commentary that often fill in-person events.
“When you have other people there, there’s other energies,” she said. “I would prefer in-person. It builds better opportunity for connections.”
Jeff Allen, who lives near Grayson, prefers to watch a forum online. In a large, in-person setting, Allen said he has a harder time concentrating on what candidates are saying. Plus, he doesn’t know that he would take the time to drive across the county to hear from candidates for sheriff and district attorney. He watched the same debate Wideman-Smith did. Organized by the Asian American Advocacy Fund earlier this month, it has some 2,400 views on the group’s Facebook page.
“I’m thankful there’s these opportunities,” he said. “Anything is better than nothing in this situation.”
In Fayette County, Carolyn Fludd said she was most struck by the disparities in how much Senate candidates knew about how to make themselves look good online for an April 14 forum.
Sharon Goldmacher, who organized a forum last week for candidates for chairman of the Gwinnett County commission, said she did a dry run with candidates so they could fix their setups. Still, one candidate's microphone was not very clear and a plan to run the forum on both Facebook Live and Zoom didn't work as planned.
Aisha Yaqoob Mahmood, the director of the Asian American Advocacy Fund, said her group did multiple tests before the Gwinnett sheriff and district attorney forum to determine who on her staff had the best upload speed and what would happen when they tried to share a Zoom feed on Facebook Live. They made sure to add additional security, so the forum wouldn’t be interrupted by Zoom hackers. With all the work that went into the forum — which had been planned for a Norcross community center before moving online — the group has added a May 7 forum for Gwinnett commission chairman candidates because Mahmood feels they now have expertise in holding online events.
Goldmacher is planning another forum at 6 p.m. Wednesday for candidates in DeKalb County running for Super District 6 on the county commission. She said there are things she’ll change to make that one more accessible, such as asking candidates to have a campaign sign in the background or something that displays their name. She also hopes to post questions on the screen to make it easier for viewers to follow along.
Taylor, the Gwinnett sheriff candidate, said he had a hard time engaging with a screen when he’s used to in-person conversations. He worried he may have lost voters because he didn’t appear at ease.
“When that camera goes on, you just freeze,” he said. “We’re not built for Hollywood. It was rough.”
Some candidates, like Cobb County Chairman Mike Boyce, said they didn’t see much difference between the online and in-person campaigning. In fact, Boyce said he’s having more one-on-one contact now. He’s making 100 phone calls a day, he said, in addition to participating in forums online. But Larry Savage, who’s running against Boyce, said it wasn’t quite the same.
While online attendees were able to submit questions in the forum both participated in, run by the Cobb County Republican Women’s Club, Savage said he was gratified there was something to do — but it was a compromise, at best.
“Political campaigns in this environment, just about everything you can do isn’t doable,” he said. “There’s no substitute for a handshake or a look in someone’s eye, and now you can’t do either.”
