After the polls close and the yard signs come down, what do you have left? You have staff and volunteers. These are people who worked for you and believe in what you stand for. Then there’s the data that you collected on your voters while campaigning.

One of the most time consuming — and necessary — things you will do while campaigning is to build a dedicated volunteer base. For decades, campaigns have been going through this arduous and difficult process of building a brand new volunteer base to help them win votes. They often start from scratch, wasting precious time.

Once the volunteer base is built, there is no reason to let it fall apart. This group of dedicated volunteers could become the volunteer base needed for another campaign in the area. With a little time, money and an objective, these activists can be a core of your skilled campaigners for years to come. Keeping track of volunteers after an election is crucial to future victory.

The other thing that is regularly left to the scrap pile is the hard earned voter data. Quality data is something that every campaign needs. If data were saved from one campaign to the next, the refinement would only continue. The more accurate the data, the more effective the messaging and the more efficient the voter canvassing. Don’t get rid of your data. Building the infrastructure now will help you if you decide to run again. Consider the possibilities of letting other campaigns use your data in the meantime.

This is already being done on a large scale by the Democratic party beginning back in 2012 presidential campaign. Naturally the data pool that the DNC  has access to includes information relevant to politics such as past voting records, political affiliation and political donations, but it also contains vast quantities of public consumer records. For example, if you voted last election, they probably have data on you, and they also know what kind of car you drive, what magazines you read, what kind of housing you live in, etc. This database is capable of recording hundreds of data points per voter. This kind of information gives those in charge of political messaging a good idea of what you want to hear from them as well as where and who you are.

We need to stop thinking about politics in the short term. At Voter Gravity, the question is not only what will help conservatives win this election, but what will make elections more winnable, period. Invest in a group of volunteers. Keep them active. Invest in good, clean data. Keep that data. Every campaign keeps the data points collected on each voter while using Voter Gravity. Take simple steps now to produce long-term victory.