The Candidate's Glossary

Politics has a vocabulary all its own, and consultants tend to use it as if everyone was born knowing it. Bookmark this page — every term below comes up in real campaigns, and each definition is written for a first-time candidate.

Money & Compliance

• EIN (or FEIN) — Employer Identification Number: the free federal tax ID your committee gets from the IRS. Required for the bank account and most registrations. See How to Get an EIN for Your Campaign.
• Treasurer — the committee's legal financial officer, who keeps the books and signs every campaign finance report, answering personally for its accuracy.
• Committee — the legal entity that raises and spends money for your campaign. You are the candidate; the committee is the organization behind you.
• Statement of organization — the registration filing (FEC Form 1 federally, a state equivalent otherwise) that officially creates your committee and names its treasurer and bank.
• Contribution limit — the legal cap on how much one donor may give your campaign. Federal limits apply per election, with the primary and general counted separately; state limits vary widely.
• In-kind contribution — a donation of goods or services instead of money, such as free printing or donated office space. It counts against contribution limits and must be reported like cash.
• FEC — the Federal Election Commission, the agency that regulates federal campaign finance. Its website, fec.gov, publishes candidate guides worth reading.
• PAC — political action committee: a committee that raises money and contributes to candidates, subject to contribution limits.
• Super PAC — a committee that may raise and spend unlimited amounts on independent advocacy, but may not contribute to or coordinate with your campaign.
• Disclaimer ("Paid for by") — the legally required notice on ads, texts, signs, mail, and websites identifying who paid for the communication. PolitiFast automatically appends your configured disclaimer to every text your campaign sends.

Organization

• MSA — Master Service Agreement: the umbrella contract covering your working relationship with a vendor. You e-sign PolitiFast's MSA, along with an addendum for each service you select, during onboarding.
• Retainer — a recurring fee for ongoing professional services, most often consulting, as opposed to paying per project.
• VCP (Voter Contact Plan) — the strategy document your PolitiFast team builds for your campaign, laying out the plan window, target universe, budget, and dated actions. You can read it in your portal; changes go through your strategist.
• Earned media — press coverage you get by being newsworthy — interviews, articles, debate coverage — as opposed to advertising you pay for.

Voter Contact

• Voter file — the database of registered voters, including addresses, vote history, and party registration. It is the raw material for nearly all targeting.
• Voter universe — the specific set of voters your campaign has decided to contact, cut from the voter file by geography, vote history, and other factors.
• Walk list — a door-knocking route generated from your universe: the names, addresses, and door order for one canvassing shift.
• Canvassing — contacting voters face to face at their doors. Still the most persuasive contact method per conversation.
• Phone bank — an organized session of volunteers calling voters from a shared list and script.
• GOTV — get out the vote: the final-stretch push to make sure your identified supporters actually cast a ballot.
• Name ID — the share of voters who recognize your name. Low name ID is the default problem of every first-time candidate, and most early campaigning is about raising it.
• Persuasion — communication aimed at changing the minds of undecided or winnable voters, as opposed to mobilizing existing supporters.
• Turnout — the share of eligible voters who actually vote — and, as a strategy term, the work of increasing that share among your supporters.

Digital

• 10DLC — 10-digit long code: the carrier registration system that lets organizations send high-volume text messages from standard 10-digit numbers. Campaigns must register before texting voters.
• Campaign Verify — the nonpartisan verification service that confirms a political committee's identity so carriers will trust its text traffic. Its checks run against your public registration records, which is why your committee details must match everywhere.
• Opt-in — a voter's documented consent to receive your text messages, such as signing up on your website. Carriers require it, and you must be able to prove it.
• Opt-out — a recipient's request to stop receiving texts, usually by replying STOP. Include opt-out language like "Reply STOP to opt out" in your messages — it is not added for you — and PolitiFast honors STOP replies automatically.
• Quiet hours — the windows, defined by law and carrier policy, during which campaigns should not text — generally late night and early morning in the recipient's time zone.
• MMS — a multimedia text message carrying an image or video rather than plain text. Costs more per message but earns more attention.
• Merge tag — a placeholder in a message template, such as a first-name field, that fills in each recipient's details so every text reads personally.
• CPM — cost per mille: the price of one thousand ad impressions, the standard unit for buying digital advertising.
• Impression — a single display of your ad to one person, one time. A thousand impressions means your ad was shown a thousand times, not to a thousand different people.
• Geofencing — targeting digital ads to devices inside a drawn geographic boundary, such as your district or a specific event location.

A note before you act

This guide is practical general guidance, not legal advice. Election law varies by state and changes often — confirm requirements with the FEC, your state election authority, or an election-law attorney.