Jeffrey De Jesus
Professor Monterrey
English 5
06 March 2020
change the history of a nation. That is why a lot of emphasis is put on campaigns to convince
people to vote a certain way. Millions are spent and hundreds sign up for campaign committees
every election cycle to get candidates elected for office. Candidates hold rallies and televise them
to energize their support and convince people to vote for them. One way these candidates are
able to gather more support is through campaign speeches. In the midst of an election, campaign
speeches are important to swaying peoples opinions, getting votes, and raising campaign funds.
These campaign speeches bring up key issues that voters are concerned about and how
candidates will respond to them. The audience is a key part of these speeches and candidates will
aim their speeches towards specific audiences to get the most votes. This essay will explain the
rhetorical choices effective campaign speeches make in order to gain support for an election.
Campaign speeches are a persuasive genre that convince regional groups of people to
vote a certain way. They are typically speeches that need to retain the audience's attention and
bring up important issues. These speeches are highly specialized based on the audience to appeal
to their issues. It needs to grab people's attention, inspire others, and make a show of one’s
leadership. It has to bring people together and get the crowd pumped up. Sentences are usually De Jesus 2
shorter to keep the audience's attention. Campaign speeches typically focus on several key main
issues in politics and why the candidate will be the ideal solution to solve the problem. It has to
build up credibility in a candidate and also discredit other candidates running for the same
position. Campaign speeches begin with addressing the greater audience the candidate is trying
The main goal of a campaign speech is to persuade voters to vote for a candidate and not
for the other candidate. The author's intention is to motivate voters to vote for a candidate. A lot
is done to set up a campaign speech. Usually speeches are either televised or in front of an
audience in a rally or it can be both. These speeches are intended to be seen by as many voters as
possible so there is advertising involved for the speech. Additional goals of a campaign speech
that help a candidate win votes but are not the primary goal are gathering attention, bringing up
hot issues, earn fundraising, undermining opponents, energizing support, and keeping people’s
attention. In a crowded field of candidates, a candidate will need to raise attention to their
campaign if anyone is to vote for them. No one will vote for a candidate if they don’t know that
candidate exists. Speeches can help bring attention to one's campaign through controversial and
engaging topics. Media and news organizations that think what a candidate is saying is
interesting will share it to other people generating more interest in a campaign and separating
one from a crowded field. Take the example of Trump in the 2016 election with a crowded
Republican field. Many thought Trump had no chance of becoming the nominee in such a
crowded field but he grabbed voter’s attention to his campaign. He did this with speeches where
he said the most over the top statements and saying outrageous things about his opponents. This
got him free attention and got helped separate him from a crowded field. The topic of a campaign De Jesus 3
speech are usually two or three key issues that voters most care about. The candidate dresses
these issues and their solution to the issues. To prove why they are the candidate that is best for
solving this issue, they will use either ethos or logos to convince voters. Ethos is to build up their
credibility of being the best and this usually comes in the form of their experience in government
or endorsements from other prominent figures in government or experts on the issue. Ethos can
also come from the form of celebrities or people with large audiences to convince voters to
support that candidate. Logos comes in the form of statistics or data that backs up a candidate's
proposal for a solution. From this a candidate is able to prove they are an ideal candidate for
solving the issue. Additionally, a speech has the goal of persuading voters to not vote for other
candidates. There may be other candidates that either agree with most issues or are running as
opposed views to one's own campaign. Candidates that agree with your issues comes down to
who is more qualified for the job where ethos is a greater importance. Using negative points to a
candidate’s history can prove a candidate as less qualified. Candidates with a platform opposed
to your ideas have to be approached differently. While they can be discredited through their
history, to appeal to more voters requires more of a use of logos and pathos. Logos and pathos
are used to convince voters that your platform is the correct platform and your issues and
The audience generally consists of a specific region such as a state, region, province, or
country. The audience of a speech varies depending on how many more votes a candidate needs
but the largest possible audience they can have is everyone who can vote. Candidates cannot
appeal to everyone and should not appeal to everyone if they want to win an election. Many
people have conflicting opinions and to find common ground that everyone would agree upon De Jesus 4
would either be extremely rare or extremely difficult. If you are trying to appeal to every voter
you might not appeal strongly to any voter and will lose your votes to every other candidate that
appeals to specific voting groups. On the other hand, candidates try to appeal to specific
audiences rather than trying to appeal to everyone. Candidates must appeal to different voter
blocks like democrats or republicans, old or young, rural or suburban, black or white. These
voting groups have shown to vote consistently together so instead of having to individually
convince every voter, convincing certain groups will appeal to more people. If a candidate is able
to appeal to specific groups that can form a large enough coalition, they could get the votes to
win the election. How candidates appeal to specific groups is by pathos or by trying to be more
relatable to these voting groups. They would definitely do their best to show respect to those
groups and acknowledge any important history or traditions those groups hold. Additionally they
would try to use the voting group’s native language when talking to them. An example of this is
in the 2020 presidential race where several democratic candidates had a part of their speech in
Spanish when addressing issues of the Latino community in order to reach out more to them.
This also shows respect to the different groups and makes them feel more like one of them.
Different groups have different issues in mind and care more for some issues compared to others.
A candidate trying to appeal to Democrats would talk about the issues the Democratic party
cares more about and a candidate trying to appeal to Republicans would focus more on issues the
To conclude the main purpose of a campaign speech is to get a candidate elected through
building up support, raising funds, bringing up certain issues, and energizing their base of
support. The audience is key to campaign speeches as they're the ones who will be voting in the De Jesus 5
election and candidates will have to appeal to certain groups in order to gain their vote. Rhetoric
is used to appeal to voters to get a candidate elected. Speeches use rhetoric as outlined above
with its purpose and audience to connect with voters and appeal to them.
