Most unforgettable campaign moment: During McCaskill’s race, Jenkins often traveled with the senator on the campaign’s RV, and he recalled a particular event in Kansas City. “When you’re staffing a candidate, you never really know what you’re going to get, whether it’s a conspiracy theorist versus a superfan,” Jenkins said. “And so I saw this woman approach Claire with a folder of newspaper clippings, and I thought, ‘OK, probably the former.’ And when she walked up, she started talking to Claire. And she pointed out that she brought these newspaper clippings because they were the headlines documenting the sentencing of the man that had assaulted her. And it turns out that Claire had been the prosecutor on the case back in the 90s when she was the Jackson County prosecutor. … She came back nearly 30 years later with her family to thank Claire for her work. … There was no dry eye in the room after that,” Jenkins said. “It was a really great moment early in my career to ground myself in the results and the great things these people are doing for their constituents.”
Biggest campaign regret: “Every time I’ve ever doubted my skill or experience or my right to have a seat at the decision-making table,” Jenkins said. “I’m a 6-foot-1, brown, queer man. And for a long time, I was so hyper-aware of my otherness, in the political space in particular, that I let it get in the way of me owning my differences and using them to be a better contribution to my team. I was dealing with the same type of imposter syndrome that everyone experiences, but it was also being reinforced by the fact that the leaders I was told to emulate didn’t look or sound like me,” he said, noting that he’s worked to build up his confidence. “But I’m still working to instill that same level of confidence in young people who are experiencing the same doubts because it doesn’t just hurt them as individuals, it also hurts us as an industry. Without a wide array of perspectives at the table where decisions are being made, pushing us to innovate, the campaigns end up running the same campaign strategies we always have. We don’t reach the potential voters who are too often left out of the democratic process. And by extension, we aren’t able to secure the electoral wins we need to make lasting meaningful change.”
Unconventional wisdom: “Your team is the most important resource you have on the campaign. And we need to get better at cultivating and preparing our teams for success,” Jenkins said. “So in the field, there’s never enough time, never enough sleep, never enough coffee. … For far too long, campaigns have run on this narrative of martyrdom in order to pull the most they can out of their staff. And though it’s effective in the short term, it makes it more difficult for us to recruit and retain the kind of talent that we need. If we could shift our focus to more inclusive and sustainable workplaces, we would retain more campaign workers cycle over cycle and create a deeper bench of expert strategists who know how to win.”
Do you know someone who works in campaigns whom we should feature for Shop Talk? Email us at attheraces@cqrollcall.com.
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Next week marks one year until the midterms! Stay tuned here for all of our coverage of the 2022 landscape. And be sure to sign up for our webinar on Nov. 16 when we’ll preview the battle for Congress.
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At the Races: Blowback bitter - Roll Call
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