Running Mate Surrogate Campaigning

In a presidential general, your running mate is not just a name on the ticket. The player who owns the running-mate character can spend their own turn on the road, campaigning for the ticket as a surrogate.

This page covers those surrogate actions. For selecting a running mate and the VP's standing bonuses, see General Elections.

Who can act

Only the player whose character is the running mate. They act on the presidential nominee's campaign, not their own (a running mate has no separate candidacy). Campaign managers do not get surrogate actions, and -led tickets have no player running mate, so they never generate them.

Surrogate actions are presidential general phase only. They are unavailable during the primary and on non-presidential races.

The daily surrogate pool

Both surrogate actions draw from one shared pool: 2 surrogate actions per day, refilled every day at midnight Eastern Time. The cap is fixed at the value the race opened under, so a live race keeps the same allowance for its whole run. When the pool is empty, further surrogate actions are blocked until the next reset.

Surrogate actions cost the running mate's own character actions on top of the shared pool, so a busy VP still has to budget their turn.

State visit (travel)

Sending the running mate to a state sets where the ticket is campaigning.

Effect: while the VP is traveling in a state, the ticket gains +1.0% per turn in that state, on top of the nominee's own travel-presence bonus. This is the same favorability the vote engine reads, so it moves real votes.
Cost: 1 from the shared surrogate pool, plus 3 to 10 of the VP's own actions depending on the state's electoral weight (the same travel cost the nominee pays).
Must be a state in the ticket's own country.

Canvass for the ticket

Once the running mate is traveling in a state, they can canvass there for the ticket, exactly like a candidate their home state.

Effect: boosts a demographic group's turnout in that state (-scaled, doubled during the final campaign-season window, with diminishing returns on repeated canvasses of the same group).
Cost: 1 from the shared surrogate pool, plus the VP's own actions and ₳100 in campaign funds per canvass.

Why use a surrogate

A surrogate effectively gives the ticket a second campaigner covering a different state. A well-used running mate can hold a favorability edge in a battleground the nominee cannot reach that turn, or drive turnout in a friendly group while the nominee works elsewhere. The 2-per-day cap keeps it from replacing the nominee's own ground game.

General Elections: running-mate selection and the VP's base bonuses.
Canvassing: the turnout mechanic the ticket canvass uses.
Campaign Manager: the campaign page and its owner-only briefing.
Political Operations and Campaign Presence: the nominee's own state presence and travel.