The highway campaign may grab the headlines. The last-mile campaign may decide the votes.
Motorcades, helicopters, stadium rallies and televised press conferences create the impression that elections are fought in full public view.
But much of the real political battle happens away from the cameras.
It happens in villages, markets, churches, boda boda stages, community meetings, WhatsApp groups and homes. It is where voters discuss candidates, test political messages and decide whom they trust.
This is the politics of the last mile.
And it helps explain why elections are often substantially shaped long before polling day.
What the 2022 campaign showed about the last mile
Kenya’s 2022 presidential contest offers a useful case study. William Ruto and Raila Odinga ran extensive national campaigns, travelling across the country and drawing large crowds.
Research on the campaign found that both candidates relied heavily on rallies, but also identified differences in how their campaigns connected national messaging to grassroots mobilisation.
Ruto’s campaign repeatedly took politics off the main highway and into smaller towns and local communities. His “hustler” message was not left to the presidential candidate alone. It was carried by parliamentary candidates, local politicians, activists and supporters.
That distinction matters.
A presidential candidate cannot personally persuade millions of voters. He needs thousands of political messengers.
Raila’s 2022 campaign had enormous national visibility and benefited from the backing of then-President Uhuru Kenyatta. But national visibility does not automatically translate into equivalent organisational strength at village level.
The lesson is not that rallies are unimportant.
They are powerful political theatre. They demonstrate strength, generate television pictures, energise supporters and create a sense of momentum.
But a rally lasts hours.
A political network can work for years.
The organising test facing the opposition
This distinction is increasingly relevant to Kenya’s current opposition.
Opposition leaders can hold press conferences, issue joint statements and announce coalitions in Nairobi. They can dominate television discussions and generate headlines across the country.
But the more important questions begin after the cameras are switched off.
Who is organising the ward?
Who is talking to voters in the villages?
Who knows which polling stations need attention?
Who is recruiting agents?
Who is explaining the coalition’s message in language voters understand?
Who can mobilise supporters when the national leaders are hundreds of kilometres away?
Those questions may matter more than another Nairobi press conference.
The experience of Barack Obama’s 2008 US presidential campaign illustrates the point. Obama’s campaign combined national rallies and mass media with an extensive field operation built around local offices, volunteers, telephone outreach and door-to-door canvassing.
The campaign understood that a national political brand needed local people to translate it into individual communities.
India offers another illustration. Narendra Modi’s campaigns have combined enormous rallies and sophisticated national communication with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s extensive booth-level organisation.
Again, the lesson is not simply that bigger rallies produce votes.
It is that national visibility becomes electorally useful when there is an organisation capable of converting attention into local mobilisation.
This is where the idea of the “last mile” becomes important for Kenya’s 2027 election.
Politics on the highway is about being seen.
Politics at the last mile is about being remembered.
The highway campaign produces images. The press conference produces news. The rally produces spectacle.
The last mile produces conversations.
And those conversations often begin long before the official campaign period.
By polling day, many voters have already heard the major arguments. They have discussed candidates with relatives, neighbours, colleagues, religious leaders, local politicians and community influencers.
Polling day is therefore often less about introducing a candidate than activating political preferences that have been forming for months or years.
This is why parties that wait for the formal campaign period may discover that the most important campaign has already been fought.
The 2027 contest will eventually produce its familiar images: packed stadiums, convoys, speeches, slogans and dramatic press conferences.
But beneath the spectacle will be another contest.
A quieter one.
The battle to occupy the space between the national leader and the individual voter.
That is where the last mile begins.
And that is where much of an election may already have been decided before the first ballot is cast.
