How to Write a Political Press Release (With a Real Campaign Press Release Example)

Published: August 14th, 2026

Table of contents

Why Your Press Release Is Often a Reporter's First Impression of Your Campaign
How to Write a Political Press Release: The Basics
Press Release vs. Media Advisory: Know the Difference
Anatomy of a Campaign Press Release Example
Common Mistakes That Get Press Releases Ignored
How NDTC Helps Campaigns Communicate Like Professionals

A local reporter's inbox on any given day might have forty press releases in it. Most get skimmed for five seconds and deleted. A few get opened, read, and turned into coverage that reaches thousands of voters who might never talk to your canvassers or see your Facebook page.

The difference between the two piles goes beyond the news itself. A lot of it rides on whether the release was written the way reporters actually need it written.

Knowing how to write a political press release is one of the most underrated skills on a campaign. It's not flashy. It won't come up at a debate prep session. But a campaign that sends clear, well-timed, properly formatted releases will get covered more often than a campaign that doesn't, even when the underlying news is identical. This guide covers what belongs in a political press release, how it differs from a media advisory, and how NDTC's free resources can help your team put out professional communications from day one.

Why Your Press Release Is Often a Reporter's First Impression of Your Campaign

Reporters are busy, and most local newsrooms are smaller than they were a decade ago. That means the reporter covering your race is likely also covering city hall, the school board, and three other campaigns. They do not have time to decode a press release that buries the news in paragraph four.

A press release is a tool, not a speech. Its job is to give a reporter everything they need to write a story, or at minimum, everything they need to decide if your story is worth writing. Do that well, and you become a source reporters trust to send them real substance. Do it poorly a few times, and your emails start landing in the mental spam folder, even when you have solid news.

For a look at the format in an official setting, the federal government's press release archive follows the same basic structure regardless of which party holds the office: a clear headline, a dateline, quotes attributed to named officials, and a boilerplate paragraph at the end. The structure stays the same because it works no matter who’s using it.

How to Write a Political Press Release: The Basics

Every strong political press release is built on a similar skeleton, whether it's announcing an endorsement, responding to news, or unveiling a policy platform. Here are the 5 basics to work off of:

Start with a headline that states the news. Reporters often decide whether to keep reading based on the headline alone. "Campaign Announces Major Endorsement" tells a reporter nothing. "State Senator Maria Chen Endorses Torres for City Council" tells them exactly what happened and who's involved.
Lead with the most important information. Journalism calls this the inverted pyramid: the who, what, when, where, and why go in the first paragraph, with supporting detail and context following after. Assume a reporter or editor might cut everything below your second paragraph, because sometimes they will.
Include a quote from your candidate or a named spokesperson. A press release without a quote reads like a memo, while including a quote gives the release a voice and gives reporters something they can pull directly into their story.
Add a boilerplate. This is the short paragraph at the end of every release that describes your campaign or committee in a sentence or two. It stays consistent release to release, and it gives context to any reporter encountering your campaign for the first time.
List contact information clearly. Name, email, and phone number for whoever is fielding media questions (usually your communications director or campaign manager). If a reporter has a follow-up question and can't figure out who to ask, you risk losing the story entirely.

For a full breakdown of these fundamentals, Rutgers' guide to press release basics and Purdue OWL's guide to writing press releases are both useful references for the format's underlying journalism conventions.

Press Release vs. Media Advisory: Know the Difference

Campaigns often use "press release" and "media advisory" interchangeably, but they serve different purposes, and reporters notice when a campaign gets them confused.

A press release announces news. It has the full story: what happened, why it matters, and a quote giving it context. Releases go out after an event has occurred, a decision has been made, or news has broken that your campaign wants to respond to.

A media advisory invites press to something. It tells reporters and assignment editors about an upcoming event like a rally, press conference, or canvass kickoff with the logistical details they need to send a camera crew or a reporter: date, time, location, and who will be available. A media advisory is short by design. It is not the place for your full message, but it provides the who, when, and where.

Sending a press release when you mean to invite press to an event (or the reverse) confuses reporters about what's actually being asked of them. Keep the two formats distinct, and your team will build a reputation for communications that are easy to act on.

Anatomy of a Campaign Press Release Example

It helps to see the format in practice rather than in the abstract. NDTC's press release example walks through a full, properly formatted release from headline to boilerplate, and the press release template gives your team a fill-in-the-blank starting point for your own announcements.

The same is true on the advisory side. NDTC's press advisory example shows what a properly scoped, logistics-first advisory looks like, and the press advisory template gives your team a reusable format for every future event.

A couple other resources worth bookmarking as your team builds out its process: PRSA's guide on writing a press release that actually gets published covers what happens after you hit send and how reporters decide what to open, and the University of Winnipeg's media release toolkit offers another useful model for structuring release content clearly.

5 Common Mistakes That Get Press Releases Ignored

Plenty of newsworthy stories go nowhere when the release itself gets in its own way. Here are five mistakes that quietly cost campaigns coverage.

Burying the news. If a reporter has to read three paragraphs to find out what actually happened, most won't get that far.
Overwriting the quote. A quote should sound like something a person would actually say out loud. Reporters can tell when a quote was written by a comms staffer trying to hit talking points rather than a candidate speaking honestly, and it reads as less credible, not more.
Sending it at the wrong time. A release that lands in a reporter's inbox at 6 p.m. on a Friday, or the same morning as a bigger statewide story, competes for attention it's unlikely to win. Know your local news cycle and time your releases accordingly.
Skipping the follow-up. A release is not a guarantee of coverage. A short, polite follow-up call or email to a reporter you have a relationship with can be the difference between your news getting covered and getting lost.
Inconsistent formatting. If every release from your campaign has different fonts, structures, and levels of detail, reporters have to work harder each time to find what they need. A consistent format, built once and reused, saves your team time and makes your campaign look more organized to the people covering it.

The good news is that none of these mistakes are complicated to fix. They just require someone on your team to slow down and cross-check the release against the basics before it goes out.

How NDTC Helps Campaigns Communicate Like Professionals

Writing a political press release is a specific skill, and it's one that campaigns of every size need someone on staff (or a well-trained candidate) to handle well. NDTC's free course on developing campaign style guides and press kits walks through how to build the consistent formatting, tone, and materials that make every release and advisory you send look and sound like it came from the same professional operation.

For campaigns building out their communications function from scratch, NDTC's introduction to campaign communications course covers the broader landscape: press strategy, message development, and how releases and advisories fit into your campaign's overall communications plan.

Between the templates, the examples, and the training, your campaign doesn't need to guess at what a professional press release looks like. The format is learnable, the tools are free, and the payoff is worth the hour it takes to get it right. Get your campaign coverage that reaches voters your canvassers can't.