Every year, thousands of offices are up for election in New Hampshire. Between a state government with 400 state representatives and 24 state senators, and 13 cities and 221 towns all with their own elected governing bodies, candidate recruitment is a uniquely massive undertaking.
We love our Granite State way, but it also makes clear why recruiting quality candidates can’t be done from afar. The question is, are we building a bench of people who can step up, or are we scrambling to find that one true “perfect” candidate?
We’ve seen a version of this play out recently in Maine, in the fallout surrounding Graham Platner’s candidacy. Whatever lessons people take from that particular situation, there is a broader one worth considering: when candidate recruitment is driven primarily by people or organizations far outside a community, it can be easy to miss local context that matters.
As recruiters, it’s not our job to know every single potential candidate. In fact, a major part of the work is having conversations with the locals who live in and know their community best. This takes time! It requires multiple conversations with multiple people, listening carefully, and understanding that every bit of information is part of a larger picture. It’s not our job to decide who knows best — it’s to collect as much information as we can and actually build a relationship with the potential candidate.
Local leaders and organizations that are on the ground all year doing the work play an incredibly valuable role in the recruitment process. They already have local networks, they know the people, and they’re already embedded in the communities. They have context that can’t be replicated by a spreadsheet, a database or a national network. So why would we try to duplicate that work when we could collaborate and uplift them instead?
Building a strong bench of candidates depends on more than asking someone to run for office once. It requires infrastructure: relationships to identify potential candidates, systems to help folks understand what running entails and support that continues throughout the campaign and into elected service. That infrastructure can make the difference in someone seeing themselves as a candidate in the first place.
Recruiting quality candidates is, at its core, a trust exercise.
It’s not just about asking around about them, we also have to talk to them and be willing to dig deep and have honest conversations about the opportunities and challenges that come with running for office. That kind of conversation requires trust. Most people don’t typically completely open up to strangers the first time you ask about what skeletons are in their closet. You have to build trust and allow them to feel like they can be vulnerable with you and trust confidentiality.
This is even more critical when it comes to recruiting folks from any community that has historically been underrepresented in public office. The ask of running for office is monumentally larger for someone whose identity might make them a target once they’re in the public eye. These are the exact people that we need in office — if the goal is to have a more reflective democracy, we need people from all walks of life at the decision-making table. The more a potential candidate feels like they’ll be supported throughout the entire process, the more likely they are to commit to run.
At the end of the day, candidates running for office are still people. People are complicated, and no recruitment process will ever eliminate the possibility that someone will make a mistake or that something from their past will come to light. It’s our responsibility as local recruiters to identify and uplift new, quality potential candidates who would otherwise fall under the national radar, because ultimately those are the people who will bring the change we need.
The answer isn’t to build bigger systems that identify and vet candidates from afar, but rather: invest in the people and organizations already embedded in our communities. Local recruiters can listen, build relationships, gather context and help find other leaders that may otherwise be overlooked. 603 Forward believes in building a bench. That means building relationships with the community and educating, engaging and activating the next generation of New Hampshire leaders to run for office and drive change for our generation to thrive.
Beck Kelly is the Leadership Programs Director for 603 Forward, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to recruiting and training the next generation of leaders in New Hampshire.