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We're going to return to campaign fundamentals at this site.  This is intended as a resource for the study and understanding of campaigns, and so let's begin by defining a political campaign.

First Principles

The purpose of a campaign is for a candidate to attain elected office.

Most of the time, this holds true.  It should be noted, though, that not all candidates embark upon campaigns, because they think that their chances of victory are good, fair, or even poor.  In fact, sometimes people run, although they know they have no chance to win at all.

What motivates people to do so, other than the prospect of victory and power?

1) Strong ideological beliefs.

This is most often true of third party candidates in American elections.  Third party candidates almost never win, since the rules are designed to minimize their influence (as opposed to other democratic countries in the Western and Westernized world, where multiple parties are common under their parliamentary systems).

Their candidacies are often launched to call attention to a single issue, or an ideological stand which is not embraced by either major party.

2) A desire to affect the outcome of a campaign between serious candidates.

This most often comes into play in multi-candidate primaries.  One candidate may enjoy only a few percentage points (or less) of support, but it can be enough to tip the balance in a multi-candidate primary.

Less often, it appears in general elections, but they can have a decisive impact.  To use one example, in the famous presidential election of 2000, Ralph Nader received approximately 80,000 votes in Florida, when the difference in the state between Al Gore and George W. Bush was - by universal consensus - less than a thousand votes.

3) Commitment to the principle of contested campaigns and avoidance of rule by one party.

This is often the situation where a) one party is dominant, and/or b) there is a strong incumbent, one whose popular appeal crosses party lines.  In that case, the candidate might embark on a campaign simply so that voters will have more than one choice in a November election.  However, in some cases, the challenger does not even wish to defeat the incumbent and might, in fact, think that he or she is the best person for the office.  It's just to uphold the idea of free elections.

But let's say that the candidate is seriously trying to win the election outright.  What must he/she do to win office?

In order to do so, he/she must receive at least one more vote than his/her nearest rival.  (This is not an absolute requirement in all elections, due to provisions such as runoffs and the Electoral College, but it holds true most of the time.)

The best, easiest, and least expensive way to do this, is for a candidate to run unopposed.  Surprisingly, many elections in America - even for positions of significance - are not formally contested.  As a general rule, this is the case when an entrenched incumbent is too difficult to defeat - particularly in state and county legislative positions - and no challenger finds it worthwhile to seek the position.  It also happens in primary elections where the locality is dominated by one party.  If the Republican or Democratic nomination is of no value because the opposite party always wins in that district or township or municipality, the weaker party's nominee will often face no opposition in the primary.

Along the same lines, there is token opposition.  This is often the case in those districts, where a member of the opposite party will formally run against the incumbent of the dominant party, but will not seriously strive to campaign, raise money, etc.  In those situations, the incumbent will simply ignore the challenger.  (This is especially true of an incumbent, or a well-known front-runner, in a primary election.) 

(How is that different from the aforementioned situation where an opponent runs simply for the sake of contesting the election, you might ask?

The difference is that in the case of token opposition, the outgunned challenger is genuinely trying to defeat the incumbent (or the stronger candidate, if it is an open-seat election).  Both the token opponent and the opponent who seeks to create voter choice have little if any chance of victory.   But the token opponent would very much like to defeat the stronger candidate, if at all possible.) 

In the general election, the incumbent - especially if both sides realize that the November election is a foregone conclusion - will often appear at debates, civic functions and forums, with the challenger.  Pleasantly, these sorts of campaigns will not be filled with the vitriol to which we have become regrettably accustomed in competitive elections.  In marked contrast, both incumbent and challenger will likely have only pleasant things to say about each other at the forums.   

However, most would-be office seekers in America will not have the opportunity to reach political office against mere token opposition, let alone no opposition at all.  Which is where we take up our analysis once more.