The political texting playbook
The channel that decides who gets heard.
Text is now the largest, fastest, lowest-cost path to voters and donors in U.S. politics. Here is what wins — and what it takes to win it.
The numbers that matter
Text is now political infrastructure.
Political texts sent in the 2024 cycle
Of texts opened within 15 minutes
Cost of a single political text
Turnout lift among low-propensity voters in tested programs
Channel scale
From tactic to infrastructure in three cycles.
Political SMS volume has compounded every cycle, and 2028 is on track to be the largest yet.
2020
Presidential cycle
2022
Midterm cycle
2024
Presidential cycle
2028
Forecast
Cost per voter touch
Nothing else reaches a voter this cheaply.
A single text is dramatically cheaper than mail, postcards, or phone banking — at full deliverability.
Text message
Per segment, MMS can be less cost for multi-segment messages
Phone bank
Per minute of live dialing
Postcard
Per piece, before postage variance
Glossy mailer
Per piece, fully produced
Why text wins
Built for the moments campaigns actually live in.
Speed
90% of texts are read within 3 minutes. No other channel reaches voters that fast.
Reach
Lands directly on the device every voter and donor already lives on.
Cost
The cheapest scalable channel in modern politics, by an order of magnitude.
Measurability
Clicks, replies, donations, and opt-outs are all attributable in real time.
Fundraising power
Text is the engine behind billion-dollar small-dollar programs.
The infrastructure of modern political fundraising runs through mobile devices and SMS.
Processed by WinRed in the 2024 cycle
Raised on ActBlue in Q3 2024 alone
Of Q1 2024 contributions came from mobile devices
Raised by the Harris-Walz email and SMS program
Moments that demand text
When the news moves, only text moves with it.
The new moat
Deliverability is what separates winners from blocked queues.
The campaigns that win in 2026 and 2028 will not send the most texts. They will send the right text, to the right voter, at the right moment — and actually arrive.
Filtering aware
Built for the realities of iOS and carrier message screening.
Registration disciplined
10DLC, CTIA, and carrier registration handled before send, not after a block.
List clean
Consent, opt-outs, and frequency caps wired into every workflow.
Win the moments that decide the cycle.
TrustSend is built for the campaigns that cannot afford to go dark when it matters.