Campaign Margins turns campaign strategy into decisions your students actually make, built from the same research you already assign. Most games are single-player and take under half an hour, easy to assign as homework. Who's Your Mayor? is multiplayer, built to run live in class as competing teams. The game puts students in the decision. Your debrief is where the learning lands.
These are real strategy simulations, not quizzes or points added to a reading. The mechanics come straight from the research, so the decisions they force are exactly the ones worth debating in class.
The mechanics come straight out of the literature: Kalla and Broockman on the limits of campaign persuasion, Downs on spatial positioning, Herrnson on the campaign for resources, the incumbency research. Students do not just read the findings. They run into them.
Every game forces a real tradeoff: where to spend a fixed budget, which coalition to court first, when to go negative and what it costs in November. Students arrive at your debrief having already taken a position they have to defend.
Free, in any browser, no accounts, no installs, no IT ticket, under half an hour. You send a link. There is no software to approve, no student data to collect, and no per-student fee to justify to anyone.
Who's Your Mayor? is the multiplayer game, the one that turns a lecture hall into a live campaign with competing teams. The single-player games slot in around it: assigned as homework, played in class, or built into a written assignment.
Put one screen on the projector and split the room into campaign teams. Every student joins from their phone, laptop, or tablet. The teams run the same mayoral race at the same time, courting the same neighborhoods, chasing the same endorsements, deciding when to spend and when to hold.
They apply coalition strategy and resource allocation against each other, live, then watch it resolve on election night. Afterward you debrief who won, and why. It is the difference between reading about strategic interaction and being on the wrong side of it.
Assign a solo game before the lecture. Students arrive having already decided where to spend, which coalition to court, and when to go negative. Your lecture becomes a debrief of what they did and why.
Have students submit a short strategy memo after they play: what they decided in week two, what it cost them, and what they would do differently. Every student has a concrete campaign to write about, and no two of them are the same.
For a full walkthrough of running a session, from what to assign to the debrief questions, read Running It in Class.
Each game maps to a course you may already teach. Assign the one that fits your unit, or use Who's Your Mayor? as a live exercise in any of them.
The mechanics were built from the findings, so the strategy that works in the game is the strategy the research says works.
For how the ideas show up in each game, read What Political Science Actually Says in the dispatches.
The fastest way to evaluate it is to play. The Primary takes about 20 to 30 minutes in any browser, no account. If you want the teaching materials, ask for the professor package.
Every game is live, free, and playable in your browser with no setup. Start with The Primary for a solo run, or host Who's Your Mayor? with your class.
Go to the games ►Debrief guides, discussion questions tied to specific in-game decisions, syllabus-ready learning outcomes, suggested reading pairings, and a Who's Your Mayor? facilitator guide.
Email us to get started ►We can build a simulation around your own context: a real or fictional district, your state's actual voter blocs and issues, a scenario tailored to your curriculum. Each build is scoped per project. Inquiry only.