Create Your Own Candidate Guide Extra Credit Assignment (20 Points)
Instructor Rachael Houston
Fall 2021
While the presidential election is over, it does not mean that this year is an “off-year.” In fact,
there are consequential local elections happening all across the country. There are municipal
elections in 22 counties and 68 cities this year, including 40 mayoral elections. Here in
Bloomington, voters will see one of the Councilmember At-Large seats on their ballot and voters
in Council District 3 and Council District 4 will also see their District Councilmember on the
ballot. Minneapolis is holding general elections for mayor, city council, board of estimate and
taxation, and park and recreation board.
Your task is to pick one of these local races that interest you. If you do not live in Bloomington
or Minneapolis, you can pick a local race in your area. You are going to create a non-partisan
candidate guide for voters in your area to use as they sort through who they are going to vote for.
Non-partisan means that you should not look more favorably at one candidate over the other. If
the race is uncontested, you will create the guide for the one candidate. However, if the race is
contested, you will want to create the guide for at least two candidates.
The purpose of your candidate guide is to guide people to decide who to vote for in a given race.
People often do not vote because they do not know where candidates stand and are confused
about how to find out. This is especially the case for local elections, where turnout is the lowest.
Components of a Candidate Guide:
Pick Your Race and Candidates. What race do you want to cover? Research the candidates
running for the office. If the race is uncontested, you only have to cover the one candidate.
However, if your race is contested you need to select at least two candidates. For example, for
the 2021 Minneapolis mayoral election Jacob Frey (incumbent) is running, along with Kate,
Knuth, Sheila Nezhad, A.J. Awed, and Mark Globus. If you are selecting this race, you need to
cover at least two of these candidates.
Identifying the Issues. For your race, you need to identify at least 5 salient issues that they are
campaigning for or against. For example, in a mayoral race do candidates have different
platforms about policing? Do they have different rezoning plans? Are they campaigning on a
platform of increasing support or decreasing support for affordable housing? It can help to frame
the issues as questions like, “Does this candidate support increasing the minimum wage?”
Researching Your Answers. For your race, you want to research the candidate(s) running for
the position. Check their websites, social media pages, local papers, and any other source to find
information about there they stand on the (at least) 5 salient issues you choose.
Creating the Candidate Guide. You will want to display your candidate(s) and their positions
in a single page that is visually compelling and easy to understand. Many non-profits create
candidate guides, and have examples from the 2020 Presidential Election and the 2020
Minnesota Senate race. Use hyperlinks or a works cited page to cite your research!