A couple of users on this forum have helped me figure out a problem I was having with my custom candidate. The computer or a player playing with a pre-made candidate always seemed to start off with a huge lead in the issues. It turns out that for the pre-made candidates start out with bonuses (or negatives) on the issues based on party affiliation, but custom candidates do not get these bonuses.
This may be working as intended, and if so that's very unfortunate and discouraging for those of us who like playing as custom candidates, especially in multiplayer where you'll get a huge advantage just by picking a candidate that's pre-made.
If this is not intended, I hope there will be an easy fix. 