Will 2016 Mark The End of The Lawn Sign?

While working their way up the ladder, nearly every consultant has served lawn sign duty. It usually consists of ordering, constructing and managing the distribution of a campaign’s yard signs.

But it can also include fielding angry calls from supporters who want more signs, driving across the district to plant a single sign on a supporter’s front lawn and organizing the take down of signs after a win (or loss). It can be hell.

The eternal question: are lawn signs an effective and efficient use of campaign resources?

A recent study suggested that lawn signs can influence an election. These results, which showed signs swing 1.7 percent of the vote on average, surprised even the study’s authors. “They're supposed to be a waste of money and time,” Alex Coppock, a co-author of the study, told Politico. “Many campaign consultants think that signs 'preach to the choir' and not much else.”

In fact, it’s hard to tell if yard signs are even reaching the choir, which has led to many campaigns at the federal level to scale back their use. In many cases, they’re now considered limited-edition campaign swag which supporters must pay for. Data-driven campaigns simply don’t have the evidence to support the printing expense.