[Guide]Learning Your District

Most Americans don't know their Congressional District until it's time to run for Congress. Here's how you can truly get a grip on your district.

Step 1 - District # and Boundaries

Go to the official Congressional District Map List and find your state, then find your district. Disclaimer: some of these boundaries will be changing due to population changes in the 2010 census.

From here, you can learn the official boundaries of your district down to some detail. If you live in a city with multiple congressional districts, you may need to use this map for extreme detail.

Step 2 - Know Your Incumbent

Although first-party challengers have not been announced yet, you can find the incumbent in your district by going to this page. If the person isn't retiring, you are probably running against them. Click on the person's name and find the "Other Committees Contributions" link. These are mostly entirely corporate and union PACs, and those dollar signs are how much money they gave your incumbent. Learn these PACs, as they are ammunition for your campaign. (Bonus points if your incumbent took money from both pro-life and pro-choice organizations, now they can't win.)

Step 3 - Learn the Demographics of Your District

Going to the wikipedia article for your district is a good starting point; you should definitely know the population, median income, and racial makeup of your district. You should also look at the voting record of your district, so that you can gather some kind of information about what issues you should ignore/spend time on.

Wikipedia only has official, stodgy, governmental statistics. The real meat and potatoes for your district is sitting in a $5000 report on someone's desk, detailing the brands of shampoo your district buys, what kind of pets your district has, etc. These are the things that matter when you're campaigning! This website is a great free resource for the candidate on a budget. The information below the map is good for finding "hot-button issues," while the information to the right can help you design your marketing materials.

Step 4 - Find organizations in your District that will Support You

This one is going to require your own bit of research. Here's a place you canstart, the Common Cause Map. This map will point you in the directions of organizations in your area dedicated to ending the corporate sponsorship of our government. You can also visit the FEC website to get the names, occupations, and addresses of groups or individuals who donated to politicians in your area. Just search the disclosure database for PACs in your area.

Conclusion

Knowing your district has a short and simple guide because it is a long, drawn-out process. Members of Congress don't stop learning about the districts they represent, they stay on top of popular opinions in the same way that MTV needs to stay on top of "what is cool" among teenagers. This guide is only a starting point of a process that should continue for the entirety of your campaign.

If anyone has any other good ideas or links, reply below and I will add them!