When Your Web Designer Disappears Mid-Campaign

Why every campaign needs control over their website—and what happens when you don’t.

Nothing stalls a campaign faster than being locked out of your own website. Maybe your web designer’s sick. Maybe they’re swamped. Or maybe—like we’ve seen too many times before—they quietly closed shop and didn’t bother to tell their clients.

When you’ve been in this business long enough, you hear some stories.

When the Designer Disappears

We’ve had clients come to us mid-campaign, unable to reach the person who originally built their site. The stories usually start the same way:

“A friend/volunteer offered to build our campaign website. They got it up and running (or didn’t finish it), and now I can’t get in touch with them to make any changes…”

Whether the designer meant well or simply vanished, the result is the same: the campaign’s stuck. That means no updates, no control, and no progress.

“Free” Isn’t Free When It Costs You Time

Sometimes the designer hasn’t disappeared—they’re just unresponsive. Maybe they’re juggling a day job. Maybe your campaign is last on their to-do list. That might not seem like a big deal at the start. But once the campaign heats up, that delay becomes a real problem.

If you need a message posted today and your designer says they’ll “get to it this weekend,” you’re in trouble.

You Need to Be in Control

A political campaign moves fast. Timing matters. When news breaks, voters and reporters go straight to the candidate’s website looking for a response or update.

You need to be able to log in and post what’s needed—without waiting on someone else’s schedule. That means having full access to your own website. When you don’t have that access, even small issues become big ones. A fundraiser link goes down, and no one can fix it. Your homepage still shows last month’s event. A news article mentions your campaign, but visitors land on a “Coming Soon” page. These are the situations that cost your campaign credibility, donations, and media opportunities.

Proper control also means owning your domain name. If you don’t, you don’t really own your online presence. We’ve also seen campaigns lose their domain names entirely—because they weren’t the ones who registered it. If the designer disappears or won’t cooperate, you may be forced to buy the domain back (if you’re lucky) or start over with a different URL. Same goes for your hosting account. If someone else owns it, they can shut down your site with one click—and you’re left scrambling.

In some of the worst cases we’ve seen, candidates had to register new domains and rebuild their entire site from scratch because their designer went missing. One client that came to us had to do that less than a month before Election Day. Not an ideal situation!

What You Can Do

Whether you use Online Candidate or go elsewhere, make sure of two things:

• You have full access to your site.
• You control your domain name and website login credentials.

Anything less is a risk your campaign doesn’t need.

A Better Way to Build

With Online Candidate, your campaign site is fast to launch, easy to update, and always in your hands.

Turnaround time is fast. A finished site can be ready within a few business days. With built-in tools and design customization, you don’t need to hire a separate web designer or programmer. You won’t be chasing down anyone for help. You’ll have the tools and access to update your site when it matters most.

Because when the race is on, there’s no time to go looking for a missing web designer.