A new report from the Center for Campaign Innovation analyzed the digital campaigns of 168 candidates running for Virginia House of Delegates in 2025. Its findings are a wakeup call ahead of the 2026 midterms. The study reveals a gap in digital competence between winning and losing campaigns, with basic execution errors echoing all the way to the ballot box.
The good news is that these mistakes are fixable, especially early in the cycle. Here are four of the most common pitfalls highlighted in the report and how to fix them.
Building Your Own Website
DIY website builders like Wix or Squarespace are great for small businesses, but campaigns have fundamentally different needs. Your website has to handle thousands of visitors, convert supporters, capture emails, and present a credible brand to people deciding whether to vote for you or not.
The study found that campaigns using WordPress were more likely to win. Why? Because the platform requires experienced digital campaigners to set up. A campaign website should never be treated as an afterthought or a side project. It’s a core piece of your digital infrastructure and one of the first places voters go to learn who you are.
Picking the Wrong URL
Your campaign’s domain name is a core part of its brand, and according to the research, it matters more than you may realize. Campaigns using their full name in their URL (e.g. JohnSmithForDelegate.com) had an average margin of victory of 19.6%. Those that used only their first name (e.g. JohnForDelegate.com) averaged -0.7% and last name only URLs (e.g. SmithForDelegate.com) averaged 6.6%.
Guying a full-name URL won’t guarantee a win, but it reinforces name recognition, improves search performance on Google and AI, and ensures consistency across every place a voter encounters your campaign. The ultimate action every campaign wants a voter to take is to fill in the bubble next to the candidate’s name on the ballot.
If you can’t secure YourName.com use a variation that still includes the full name.
Not Collecting Emails
It’s stunning how many campaigns still fail to do the basics. The report found that one in four Republicans in competitive races didn’t collect email addresses on their homepage. That’s not some minor oversight. It’s a critical failure because the campaigns miss out on fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and direct voter communication. This is often the byproduct of using a DIY website builder.
Email capture should be everywhere on your campaign website to reinforce it as the primary call to action for every visitor.
Creating Too Few Facebook Ads
The report also found that campaigns that ran more varieties of Facebook ads were more successful at the ballot box. The more creative options you provide the algorithm to optimized, the better your results. Running a single ad to an audience means you’re wasting money and limiting your reach.
Campaigns that produced multiple creative variations outperformed those that didn’t and with AI-powered design tools like Canva, it’s easier than ever to generate the variety necessary to be effective.
Conclusion
These mistakes happen early in the campaign cycle, but their impact compounds over time. A poorly chosen domain name, a weak website, or missing email capture in Q1 may seem small, but by Election Day, they’ve shaped who finds you, who supports you, and who shows up.
Now is the time to fix these gaps. Get your digital infrastructure in order. Build the systems that support you months from now. Campaigns that start strong online give themselves advantages that last all the way through Election Day.