Everybody who works in electoral politics knows that election season doesn’t begin on Election Day. It doesn’t begin with the first campaign ad, the first debate, or even the first fundraising push. For congressional offices, it may feel like election season begins in earnest when the communications blackout hits.
By now, campaigning has been underway for months. Members have been raising money, attending events, and spending more time back home. Political coverage has intensified. Challengers have emerged. Everyone on Capitol Hill knows “what time it is”, so to speak.
But the arrival of communications blackout periods across the country represents something different: one of the last major milestones on the official congressional calendar before Election Day.
This is when election season gets real inside the office.
The Office Starts to Change
The work of Congress doesn’t stop because an election is approaching.
Constituents still need help with federal agencies. The phones still ring. Inboxes will still fill on a daily basis. Casework doesn’t disappear. Legislative responsibilities continue. But the people and resources available to handle that work can begin to change.
Some congressional staff may choose to spend more time supporting campaign activities outside their official duties. House rules require a strict separation between official and campaign activity, including requirements that campaign work be performed on personal time and without official House resources. Staff taking on significant campaign responsibilities may move to part-time status or choose to take leave without pay.
Others may begin thinking about what comes next.
For staff in offices facing competitive elections or retirements, Fall can bring uncertainty about where they will be working in January. Even in returning offices, staffers may be considering their next opportunity as the end of the Congress approaches and start interviewing for or even negotiating their next jobs.
The result can be a familiar election-year dynamic:
The work continues, but the team doing it may be changing.
That makes operational consistency especially important.
Processes that were second nature in March may need to be handled by different people in October. Institutional knowledge becomes more valuable. Training matters more. Reliable systems become even more critical. And when something unexpected happens, knowing exactly who to call can make a significant difference.
Then Comes Transition
Election Day eventually resolves one set of uncertainties, and immediately creates another.
Every two years, the House undertakes a massive transition operation involving departing offices, returning Members and newly elected Members. Following the 2024 election, for example, the House Chief Administrative Officer reported supporting 65 Member transitions, closing 65 D.C. offices and more than 125 district offices, training 123 aides during New Member Orientation, and completing 192 D.C. office moves in December alone. The House leads this transition effort but Leidos has taken on an informal support and advisory role in this project every election year.
Behind those numbers are thousands of individual decisions, deadlines, dependencies and handoffs.
New Members are sworn in on January 3rd, and while there is much ceremony, official portraits, caucus luncheons, etc. This is no dress rehearsal built into the calendar. The office needs to get to work.
Staff need personal technology (laptops, tablets, etc.) Constituents need ways to contact their Representative. Correspondence needs somewhere to go. Casework needs to be managed. Data needs to be available. Systems need to communicate with one another. Staff need training, and inevitably, questions and unexpected problems need answers.
That’s where our experience becomes more than a line on a marketing one-pager.
There Is Value in Having Done This Before
Leidos has supported congressional offices through election cycles and congressional transitions for decades.
We’re proud of the technology we’ve built and continue to improve. We’re proud of IQ, our communications capabilities and the broader portfolio of services we provide congressional offices.
But technology is only part of what an office is buying when it chooses a congressional tech partner.
You’re also buying experience.
Experience means understanding the rhythms of the institution. It means knowing what usually happens next. It means recognizing the difference between an everyday support request and something that could become a Day One problem. It means knowing who to call, when to call them and when something needs to be escalated.
And it means having people who have worked through congressional transitions before, not teams encountering the transition process for the first time alongside your staff.
New technologies and new vendors can bring valuable ideas to the congressional marketplace. Competition can make the entire ecosystem better. But Capitol Hill also has an unusually steep learning curve, and some lessons can only be learned by operating within it.
For a congressional office, particularly a freshman office, the first weeks of a new Congress are probably not when you want one of your most important technology partners learning those lessons for the first time.
Experience Is Part of the Product
There will be plenty of change between now and January. Teams will change. Responsibilities will shift. Elections will be decided. Offices will close, move and new offices will open. New staff will arrive on Capitol Hill and begin learning jobs that don’t come with much of a warm-up period.
Through all of it, constituents will continue expecting their congressional offices to work. That’s why we believe the people behind congressional technology matter just as much as the technology itself.
The blackout calendar is a reminder that we’ve reached that point in the cycle again.
Election season is here.
And whatever the next few months bring, Leidos has been through this before.
