Big Data and the Republican and Democratic Parties

By 2012, the Democratic Party had centralized the storage of voter data.  At the same time, the Republican Party had started a plan for building a new data platform.  Ex-Facebook engineer Andy Barkett was hired to spearhead the effort. Two notable data services, Targeted Victory and FLS Connect, were established in political realms.  In 2012, these firms billed a combined $86 million for services to the Republican presidential campaign.

There were issues with some firms withholding data and the big aforementioned firms were a bit put off by Barkett's criticisms of the party's lack of tech talent.

Several firms were involved in the construction of the data platform and data gathering.  Also now the situation has been compounded by late software delivery by Barkett and the RNC. 

In the meantime, quite a few state and local Republican candidates have turned to other sources.  Mr. Barkett has relinquished his current role in favor of developing a long-term data strategy for the RNC.

The use of data in targeting specific voters has become invaluable in political races.  Groups of voters can be targeted by what motivates them.  Their consumer behavior and media habits can be key determinant factors.

In the midterm elections, the lack of a single data source is not believed sufficient to sway the favor from the Republican Party, but may pose more of a serious issue in the next presidential election.

For the mid term election, the Democratic Party has developed different means for outreach to target voters. Key to their efforts has been to sign up occasional (do not vote every election) Democratic leaning voters for vote by mail and encourage early voting.

In Lake County Illinois, there has been a relentless effort to get the vote out.  The targets have been identified via Big Data means, and are called and personally visited by volunteers.  Results of canvassing are then fed back into the computer by volunteers after each round, thereby adding fresh voter intelligence to the Big Data pool.

What does this effort buy the Democrats?  Regarding early voting,  Wall Street Journal poll has found 25 percent of the voters in early voting states already have voted.  Of the early voters, 49 percent voted for Democratic candidates versus 40 percent for Republican candidates.

We will continue to see Big Data and its feedback loop segment and cater specific approaches to voters. The campaigns will be able to evidence the results of their efforts and adapt as they need to reach voters.  How this will evolve with the next Presidential election will be interesting to watch.

References:

'Big-Data Overhaul Jolts Old Political Party Ways'. Patrick O'Connor, WSJ, 10/22/14.

'Early Votes Mean Early Party Boasts'.  Reid J. Epstein, WSJ, 11/3/14.