If you’re scoring at home, the mid-term Congressional elections are but 14 months away, but many campaigns have already started. Political operatives across the country are perplexed with a new challenge: Trying to figure out GMail’s newish tabs feature.

Google rolled out several changes to GMail earlier this year, with the automated categorization of incoming mail into separate tabs the most dramatic shift for email marketers.  Suddenly, mass emails are shuffled away from view.  No one is sure how that will affect open and action rates, but that hasn’t stopped campaign consultants from worrying:

While it’s too early to tell exactly how much the new tabs affect political marketing, Michael Slaby, most recently Obama for America’s chief integration and innovation officer, said it might push campaigns to focus more on social media.

“If this does drive open rates down for campaigns, it will definitely have a serious impact on online fundraising and will drive campaigns to push for revenue via other channels including social — which generally still lags email in overall fundraising effectiveness,” Slaby said in an email.

A cynic might point out that by making email a less-reliable avenue for reaching eyeballs, Google would force money away from list vendors and toward online advertising companies - like Google.