Steve Ayscue

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“Voters want to know whether a candidate can identify with their daily struggles,” says political strategist Steve Ayscue. “It’s not about flowery speeches or 10-point plans but about being relatable.”

Photography: 
John O'Boyle

Why do some “shoe-in” candidates struggle in the polls while others defy low expectations, rising meteorically? Steve Ayscue has built a career on that paradox. With 30 years of campaign consulting under his belt, he knows that empathy is everything.

“Voters want to know whether a candidate can identify with their daily struggles,” says Ayscue CCAS’92, a Democratic strategist based in Haddon Heights, New Jersey, and an adjunct professor of political science and urban studies at Rutgers University–Camden. “It’s not about flowery speeches or 10-point plans but about being relatable.”

Taking complex messages and turning them into what matters to ordinary people is what Ayscue does best. For example, to emphasize the middle-class roots of U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Ayscue got him to launch his 2012 campaign in front of his tiny house in Paterson, New Jersey, and talk about his everyday life. The result was an emotionally powerful and highly effective speech.

A big part of Ayscue’s practice is interviewing candidates at length, uncovering details about their lives they wouldn’t normally talk about, and choosing clients as carefully as voters casting a ballot. “Compelling personal stories and underdogs who have beaten the odds get my attention because I tend to get emotionally connected,” he says. “It makes me fight harder on their behalf.”

Ayscue got into politics at age 12, turned professional at 18, and honed his skills at

Rutgers as president of the student government. He was a top adviser to former New Jersey governor James J. Florio, consulted for Donald Trump when he was exploring a Reform Party presidential bid in 2000, and advised on Cory Booker’s winning U.S. Senate campaign. In consulting not only for candidates, but also for corporations and causes, Ayscue knows that his practice can be a 24/7, call- in-the-middle-of-the-night job. The pace and the unpredictability are what keep him fired up.

The current race for the White House is no exception. Ayscue, who has appeared as a commentator on numerous television and radio programs throughout the primaries, recently joined Hillary Clinton’s New Jersey leadership team. He’s ready for anything. “Ninety percent of politics,  particularly on the national level, is improv theater,” he says.

In 2016, that’s what’s keeping us on the edges of our seats.