Retail politics is a type of

political campaign A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referend ...

ing in which politicians directly talk to and interact with their supporters. Examples of retail politics include in-person campaign events, rallies, and

direct mail Advertising mail, also known as direct mail (by its senders), junk mail (by its recipients), mailshot or admail (North America), letterbox drop or letterboxing (Australia) is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail. The d ...

. More recent examples of such campaigning have included candidates' appearances on

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

s. It is often framed as an alternative to "wholesale" politics, in which candidates attempt to reach a large number of potential voters at one time, rather than targeting a smaller number more directly. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, in-person retail politics has become less common in recent years, in large part because of the increasing influence of televised debates between candidates.

Advantages

Supporters of retail politics have argued that it has various advantages for candidates who do it: it makes voters more likely to support those candidates by "humanizing" the candidate to voters, and it allows voters to engage directly with candidates, such as by asking them questions. Some voters in the United States state of

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

, whose presidential primary is viewed as highly significant, have said that being able to see candidates in person, rather than on television, makes them more likely to support the candidate. Critics of the practice argue that it requires too much time and effort to justify in-person events, since those who attend such events tend to already be politically engaged, and any media coverage generated by the event tends to be limited in its geographic impact. The argument that retail politics is important in New Hampshire specifically has been disputed as well: in 1996, R. Kelly Myers of the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, m ...

asserted that "The myth that what matters in New Hampshire is retail politics has largely been a myth for several years."

References

Political campaigning {{US-politics-stub