They will have to use somewhat different strategies depending upon which candidate wins, but no one is even permitted to become a serious candidate unless the stringpullers are certain beforehand that he will take orders. You might conclude from what I've just said that the whole democratic process is so tightly controlled by the stringpullers that it is completely meaningless and should be of no interest to us. Well, although that is substantially true, it is not completely true. Although the stringpullers, the people who control the media, usually are able to make the electoral process go the way they want, nothing in life is absolutely certain. People miscalculate things.
People make errors of judgment.
Even very clever people sometimes trip themselves up by trying to be too clever. We can see an example of that in the recent presidential election. Stringpullers like close elections, because that gives them a greater advantage. He knows that he'll win and he doesn't need to beg anyone for support. Theoretically, he could even rebel against the stringpullers and tell them to go to hell.