How to play Working The Margins

Twenty weeks to out-campaign a computer opponent, and then Election Night decides it.

You can run in a real election as one of its real candidates, with their record, the questions they really faced and the news of their year, or make up your own candidate and run on any year’s map from 1788 to 2024. On this website Real elections offers six races, one from each era; all 60 will be playable at launch on Steam, coming soon.

The goal

Win a majority of the electoral votes. On a modern map that’s 270. Older maps are smaller, and the setup screen tells you the number for the year you pick. If neither of you gets there, the House decides.

Starting a campaign

Open the game and choose New campaign. It opens on Real elections: pick a year from the list to see its candidates, its real result and how well your opponent will play, then press Play as beside the candidate you want. Easy, Normal, Hard or Expert changes how well your opponent plays, and on the two easier settings you get more money than your opponent: a third more on Easy, a tenth more on Normal. On Easy your opponent also never turns an interview or a debate against your record. Hard and Expert give neither side an edge, and every opponent makes a mistake now and then, the harder ones less often. You can’t change the setting once the campaign starts. Where the real race wasn’t close, Leads offers a choice too: Within reach, where a big lead narrows over the campaign so either side can win on Election Day (against a Hard or Expert opponent it closes all the way), or As it really was, where the favorite keeps more of the real lead and the underdog is a long shot who can still win when played well. In every real election, if you are behind in the last four weeks and still campaigning, there is a small chance that the race breaks your way: voters swing toward you until you lead in the state that decides the election. On this website the list has six elections, one from each era.

A sitting President first sees the key decisions of his term, each as it really happened. Change any of them, to one of the alternatives that were really on the table, and the campaign starts from the record you chose: his reputation, how each group of voters feels about him and the questions he’ll face.

Your own candidate is the other tab. Name your candidate and your opponent, give each a face (a ready-made portrait you can change, or a photo, which never leaves your browser), a party, a platform and a home state, and choose any year’s map. None of the names or faces affects the polls.

When the campaign begins, the first-week guide can walk you through week 1.

How a week works

The campaign runs 20 weeks, and you get 3 actions in each one. Almost everything you do uses an action, and most of it costs money too. Unused actions don’t carry over, so spend all three. A week in which you take none of them costs you support with every group of voters, and more for each such week in a row.

Here’s the price list for a 2024 campaign. Older elections use the dollars of their own day: a 1960 campaign starts with about $4 million on Normal and an 1860 campaign with about $106,000. Every cost scales the same way, so no year is harder to fund than another.

Starting funds: $120M, plus $11M in weekly income
Publish or change a position: 1 action and $2M
Rally: 1 action and $5M
Ad buy: 1 action and $5M, $10M or $20M
Interview or debate: 1 action, both questions included
Accepting an endorsement: 1 action
Fundraising: 1 action, once a week
Extra action: $25M each, 2 a week at most
Breaking news and stories about your opponent: no action, though some responses cost money

When you’re finished, press the Advance button at the bottom of the Weekly planner. Your opponent’s week plays out, your weekly income lands and fresh polls come in. In week 20 the same button starts Election Night.

Most of what you build leaks away between weeks. Momentum loses 28% of its value. Your organization in a state, and the local bump from rallies and ads, slip about 4%. Your reputation drifts about 6% back toward where you started, so you have to keep earning it. Voters’ reactions to interviews, debates and news fade too. The positions you publish are the exception: those stay put until you change them.

Two things can hold up your week. Breaking news has to be answered before you do anything else. Once you start an interview or debate, the follow-up has to be answered before your next action.

The week’s interview is optional, and skipping it costs nothing, except during a funding scandal, when ducking the press costs Trust and Authenticity. A debate is not optional. If you advance without doing the debate in a debate week, it counts as turning it down, which costs Trust and Authenticity and gives your opponent something to bring up.

Your campaign tools

Platform

Every one of the ten issues has three positions: one on the left, one in the middle and one on the right. Picking a side wins over the voters who agree and pushes away the ones who don’t. The more voters care about the issue, the bigger both effects. The middle position wins and loses nobody, but it makes you look more moderate. Take the side your party normally opposes and it costs you Authenticity and Trust.

The first position you publish on an issue builds your issue ownership, which is how far voters trust you on that issue specifically. Change a published position later and it costs Trust, undoes what the old one did for you, and hands your opponent something to use against you.

Rallies

Select a state on the map to open its panel, then hold a rally there. You pick one of three messages, and each one shifts your reputation and speaks to different voters. A rally builds your organization in that state, moves its polls and adds a little momentum, with a weaker version of the message reaching everyone else. Go back to the same state and each visit does less than the one before. In a real election of two candidates from 1900 on, your running mate campaigns too, from the week of Labor Day: once a week, at no cost, send them to the state on the map with the button under it. Their stop does a quarter of what a rally of yours does there, and your opponent’s running mate is out on the trail as well.

Ads live on the Spending tab. Pick a channel, where to run it, an issue and how much to spend. The channels below are today’s; in a past year they are that year’s own, such as newspapers, stump speakers and party clubs in 1860, radio from 1924 and television from 1952, and they work the same way.

TV and Digital ads build your ownership of the issue and fire up one voter group: whichever group agrees most with your published position, or, if you haven’t taken a side yet, the group that cares most about the issue. TV makes you look more competent and less authentic. Digital does the reverse.
Either one can run nationally or in a single state. A national buy does more for your reputation. A state buy moves that state’s polls.
Target one age group or all ages. TV works best on older voters, Digital on young adults, and each age group responds more to the issues it cares about most. The game shows the strength of the buy before you pay.
Ground campaigns build organization in one state, which is the slowest thing to fade, but the time off the national stage costs you a little momentum. Ground can’t target an age group.
Repeat buys wear out. Spending in the same state again, or hitting the same age group again, gets you less each time.

Interviews and debates

There’s an interview available every week, and a debate in weeks 5, 10, 15 and 20. Either one is two questions for a single action, and the follow-up you get depends on how you answered the first. Debate answers hit your reputation 50% harder than interview answers, in both directions. Commit to a policy on air and it goes straight onto your platform, and reversing a published position on air costs Trust, as it does from the platform.

Every answer also builds your record: the kind of candidate you’ve shown voters, measured or bold, forceful or candid. An answer in keeping with it lands better. One that goes against it reads as a change of heart: it lands weaker and costs Trust. Your opponent is held to the same record. In a race of more than two candidates, nobody’s record is kept.

You can turn an appearance down without spending an action. It costs Trust and Authenticity, double that during a funding scandal, but nothing you say can blow up in your face.

When your opponent has a record on the subject, some answers let you turn the question back on them. It can land, but the host may push back or call it a dodge, and the same line wears thin if you keep reaching for it. In debates your opponent comes after your record too, and you get a chance to answer.

Fundraising

You can fundraise once a week from the Weekly planner, for one action. The choice is where the money comes from:

Grassroots raises $10M with no scandal risk at all.
Business Leadership Fund raises $20M. Scandal risk starts at 12% and climbs 8 points every time you go back.
Dark Money raises $45M. Risk starts at 45% and climbs 12 points each time, so it turns dangerous fast.

The planner shows the current odds before you commit. A funding scandal costs you Trust, Authenticity and Leadership, drags on your support in every state, and stays in the news for weeks. The more risky money you’ve taken, the longer it runs. Hosts and your opponent will ask about it, and if it’s still running on Election Day it costs you votes at the ballot box. If you’ve promised to clean up campaign money, by backing public campaign financing for instance, a scandal reads as a broken promise and hits much harder.

The planner is also where you buy extra actions. Two a week is the limit, and like your other actions they’re gone when the week ends.

Endorsements

Four groups are willing to back you once the part of your reputation they care about is high enough, and each one tells you its number up front. Taking an endorsement costs one action. It fires up one voter group, cools another one slightly, and adds momentum. Let that trait slide more than 3 points below what they asked for and they pull the endorsement.

Breaking news

Roughly one week in seven opens with breaking news, and you have to answer it before you do anything else. Answering costs no action, though some responses cost money. There’s no free option, and the story pushes its issue up the agenda whatever you say.

No answer lands the same way every game. It counts for more the closer it comes to Election Day. It lands better when it fits your record (see Interviews and debates), and worse, costing Trust, when it reads as a change of heart. Every campaign has its own luck besides. To learn how your answer went down, tick Poll voters on your answer before you choose: it costs the same as a private poll and no action. Once you answer, your pollster asks voters who heard it how it moved them, and you see the points of support it won or lost with them, within 2 points either way.

Stories about your opponent

From week 2 to week 19, stories about your opponent can break, anything from a small embarrassment to a real scandal. Up to three run at once. Over the following weeks they grow, fade, get confirmed or fall apart. Every time one moves you decide how to play it: stay out of it, voice concern, attack, put it in an ad (that one costs money), call for an investigation. Reacting never uses an action, and ignoring a story counts as staying out of it.

Timing is the whole game here. If you attacked over a story that later falls apart, it comes back on you. If it gets confirmed, the campaign that went after it early looks right and the one that told voters to wait for the facts looks slow.

The final stretch

From the campaign of 1840 on, in a race of two candidates, the last weeks decide the close states. In the last four, once a week, a turnout drive pays your workers to bring your voters to the polls in a state: it costs money but no action, shows in no poll, and adds a little to your share there on Election Day, less with each further drive in the same state. In the last two, you make your closing argument once: the issue you ask voters to carry into the booth, which counts for whoever they trust on it. From 1996 on, part of the vote is cast early over the last four weeks, as much as really was that year, at the support you had then. Your opponent does all of this too.

Your opponent

Your opponent runs a full campaign under the same rules, with the same actions, the same money and the same limits. They can only see what’s public: the polls and the moves you make in the open. The Opponent Campaign tab lists everything they’ve done in public, and the map highlights where they’ve been lately. Difficulty decides how sharply they play it.

Reading the race

Reputation

Everything you do moves seven traits: Competence, Trust, Leadership, Economic competence, Authenticity, Moderation and Change. Each runs from 0 to 100 and starts near 50. Above 50 a trait wins you votes, below 50 it costs them, and how much depends on which voters are judging. There’s no all-round best candidate, because the same trait that wins one group over puts another off.

Voter groups

The electorate is six voter groups, and each one judges you on a different part of your reputation:

Change seekers: Change and Authenticity. Moderation puts them off.
Coalition loyalists: Competence, Leadership and Trust.
Pragmatists: Moderation, Competence and Economic competence.
Pocketbook voters: Authenticity, Economic competence and Change.
Occasional voters: Leadership and Authenticity.
Outsiders: Change and Authenticity. Moderation puts them off a little.

A real election has its era’s own voter groups instead, each starting from how it really voted, and each judges you on its own part of your reputation in the same way.

Each group also has one issue it ranks above the rest. Enthusiasm is that group’s turnout: the more fired up they are, the more their support is worth on Election Day. Every state has its own mix of the six. Select a state to see which groups are biggest there, its top issue and its share of swing voters. The swing voters are Pragmatists, Pocketbook voters and Occasional voters, and the more of them a state has, the faster it moves when you campaign in it.

Issues

The issue agenda on Headquarters shows how much voters care about each issue right now. It moves every week on its own, and breaking news and ads push issues up it. A position on an issue voters care about moves more votes than the same position on one they’ve stopped thinking about. Owning an issue helps you with the group that ranks it first and in the states where it’s the top issue, so ownership is worth most when the issue is high on the agenda.

Polls

Fresh polls come in after every decision and at the start of each week. They carry a margin of error, about 3 points nationally and 4 in a state, and they wobble on their own, so don’t read much into a one-point move. The map colors each state by its margin: Tilt (under 5 points), Lean (5 to 10), Likely (10 to 15) or Safe (15 or more). A dead-even state is a Tossup. The electoral vote count on Headquarters just adds up who’s ahead in each state’s poll, so a total built on Tilt states is worth a lot less than it looks.

Selecting a state on the map also closes in on it and shows its counties as they stood on that year’s Election Day, each shaded by its estimated lead: its real vote that year, fitted so the counties add up to the state’s poll (your private poll there, if you took one this week). Select a county, or pick it from the list in the card over the map, for its numbers. Back to the whole map, or Esc, returns to the country.

You can also pay for a private poll of one state from its panel. A bigger sample and a turnout model of your own mean it misses by about half as much as the public polls, and only your campaign sees it. It costs money but no action, and your pollster can field two a week. Before 1936, when polls weren’t yet taken by sampling, the polls are straw polls and your private poll is your party’s own canvass of the voters.

Every extra point of advantage buys a little less than the point before it, but there’s no ceiling. Keep outworking your opponent and a close race turns into a landslide. Coast and a lead drains away.

Election Night

Advancing from week 20 starts Election Night, and the result is settled the moment the polls close. Undecided voters break toward whoever has more momentum, and the polls can miss on the day, nationally and region by region, so a one-point lead is not a win. Then you sit and watch the count.

States report as their polls close, East to West. Close states take longer to call, and a state can be called before all its votes are in. Maine (from 1972) and Nebraska (from 1992) give two electoral votes to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each congressional district. Play and Pause do what you’d expect, the speed runs from 0.25× to 16×, and Next update steps forward one report at a time. At 1× the whole night takes four to six minutes. Select a state on the map to follow its count county by county: the small counties report first and the big ones last, a county is striped while it counts, and the count keeps the speed you set. Select a county to watch its own votes come in. Back to the whole map, or Esc, returns to the country, and National popular vote to the nation’s total.

If neither candidate reaches a majority of electoral votes, the House decides. Each state delegation casts one vote, an evenly split delegation sits out, and DC gets none. The House takes up to 12 ballots, and if nobody has a majority after the last one it deadlocks. The game doesn’t hand anyone the win. The count stops and the House’s chamber comes up, a seat for every member that year: each seat fills in with the color of the candidate its member voted for as the delegations vote in turn, and the states each candidate wins are listed beside it. Any key or a click skips to the result.

When the count finishes, the results screen gives you the winner, the electoral and popular vote, a final map you can go through state by state, the states that decided it, your campaign highlights and a column-by-column comparison of both campaigns. Full screen shows the map as large as your screen allows. After a real election it also sets what really happened beside your result: the real map (As it really was), with the states that went the other way outlined on both, the real electoral vote, the states you turned, and how often you answered the news the way your candidate really did. From there you can download a results card, see the detailed results, review your whole campaign, replay the same matchup or set up a new one. Both of the last two ask before they go ahead. A new campaign takes an empty save slot if there is one, so your finished campaign stays saved; with all three slots full, it takes this one’s place.

Saving

The game saves as you go, in your browser, with no account. It keeps up to three campaigns: a new one goes into an empty slot, and only when all three are full does it replace the one you were playing, which the start screen warns you about first. Saved campaigns, on the start screen, lists them, so you can pick one up again, delete it or download it as a file. Saves don’t travel to another device or another browser on their own, and private browsing or clearing site data wipes them, so a downloaded file is the way to keep a campaign safe or move it. Load it from the same page.

Screen layout and map zoom

On a computer, or a phone or tablet held sideways, the whole game fits on one screen. The week, the poll, your funds and the Advance button run along the top, the tabs sit in a rail down the left, the map fills the middle, and whichever tab you open fills the right and scrolls on its own if it’s long. On a narrower screen the rail shrinks to icons and the Weekly planner becomes a tab of its own. Hold a phone upright and the game stacks everything into one scrolling column instead.

Two tabs are worth finding early. History is the record of every move you’ve made and what it did to your numbers, which is the quickest way to work out why the polls moved. On the full-screen layout, Rules & notes gathers the rules and the small print in one place.

Any map zooms without moving the rest of the screen. Pinch it, scroll over it (hold Ctrl if the page scrolls instead), or use the + and − buttons in the corner, then drag to move around. The circular arrow puts the whole map back. The smallest states have buttons under the map too, and pick up labels once you’re zoomed in.

Settings and sound

The gear button at the top of the game opens Settings:

Colors starts with the theme of the menus: Match my system, Dark or Light. Under it are the map colors: start from the Default, Traditional, High contrast or Colorblind-friendly palette, or give each party its own color and the Tossup color, by swatch or hex code. Edit shades sets each party’s Tilt, Lean, Likely and Safe states one by one. A change reaches every map in the game at once and is remembered on this device, and Reset to default brings the map colors back. The New campaign screen’s Map colors button opens the same choices. Legends and state labels always name the category, so you never have to go by color alone.
Era styles sets the look of the game’s screens: each election in the style of its own era, one style for every election, or Broadcast, the game’s first look.
Candidates changes either candidate’s portrait mid-campaign, with the same options as setup.
Sound has separate volume for music and effects, and the sound pack: the music and sounds of an era, which follow the screens’ style unless you choose one.
Keys lists every keyboard shortcut and lets you change any of them: press a key’s button, then the key you want, alone or with Ctrl or Alt. It also has a switch that turns off the single-key shortcuts.

Each era style brings its era’s music and sounds, some of them recordings of the time, which the credits page lists: music for the campaign, for interviews and debates and for Election Night, and for a victory or a defeat at the end. Sound starts after your first click or key press, the speaker button at the top mutes it, and it pauses while the tab is in the background. Your settings are remembered in this browser.

Playing with a keyboard

On a computer, each action’s key is shown on its button or tab, and ? lists them all. These are the keys the game starts with. You can change any of them in Settings, under Keys.

N advances the week. With actions left over, press it twice, so a stray press never wastes them.
R holds a rally in the selected state (then 1 to 3 picks the message, or Enter repeats the last one), A opens Spending, L commissions a private poll and F fundraises. ← and → move between states.
W, H, S, O, P, I, D, E, Y and U open the Weekly planner, Headquarters, the state dossier, the opponent’s tab, Platform, Interviews, Debates, Endorsements, History and Rules. Esc closes the side panel.
For breaking news, interviews and debates, 1 to 9 pick a response and Enter confirms it.
On Election Night, Space plays or pauses the count, N steps to the next update, + and − change the speed, and R opens the results once the count is done.
M turns the sound on or off, and , opens Settings.

Settings, under Keys, also has a Single-key shortcuts switch. Turn it off and a letter, number, symbol or Space does nothing on its own, so the game can’t clash with a screen reader’s own keys or a key pressed by accident. Esc, Enter, the arrow keys and shortcuts that use Ctrl or Alt keep working, and you can give any action one of those.

Real elections and the maps

A real election brings its year’s own candidates, issues and voter groups, the debates that were really held, the questions each candidate really faced and the news of the year. Where your candidate chose a running mate during the campaign, you choose from those really weighed, and each answer says what that running mate brings to the ticket: their home state and the voters they appealed to. Some years have three or four candidates. Your own candidate runs a two-way race on any year’s map, which starts from that year’s real result. On a real election map the campaign is that year’s: its issues and the positions on them, its interviewers, its kinds of advertising and fundraising, and its debates, if it had any. The parties and the voter groups are the game’s own, and nothing names the year’s real candidates or parties. On this website Real elections offers six of the 60; all of them will be playable at launch on Steam, coming soon.

The maps use today’s state outlines even for years when the borders were different. Before 1824 the popular-vote records are incomplete, so a state with no recorded total shows no count rather than an invented one. The credits page lists where the data comes from.

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