Political campaigns target state voters with laser-focused data
Tom Stoeger went canvassing for the Outagamie County Democrats in November for the first time.
Going door-to-door around Appleton, Stoeger was given a mentor and a clipboard carrying a list of names of people he planned to encounter that day.
The rules were simple: Knock on the door. Wait for a response. Ask for the person listed. If no one answers, leave a flyer and move on.
If the targeted person answers the door, have a conversation. Ask them about what issues matter to them. Ask about the economy, the state of health care and the looming threat of climate change.
If they’re engaged, go further and ask them to rate their state and federal representatives as well as President Donald Trump’s performance in office — and make sure to take notes.
Are they an undecided voter who likes U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers’ performance? List them as a persuadable Democrat.
Come across someone who opposes Trump and the Republican-controlled Legislature? Mark them down as a strong Dem.
Meet someone who’s a lifelong GOP voter and a fan of the president? Cross them off the list and note they’re a strong Republican to avoid for future visits.
These are only some of the ways voter information is collected and kept at the local level by political parties and campaigns.
On a national scale, campaign operatives have used extensively collected information to target voters with surgical precision by compiling databases using consumer marketing data, voter registration bases and public records.
With algorithm-driven platforms like Facebook, voter data has become more accessible than ever and campaigns have the capacity to learn about individuals’ interests on a highly granular level from what kind of music or TV shows someone is interested in to what magazines they may subscribe to.
Privacy concerns about “big data” became a global interest after Facebook said political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which was connected to Trump’s 2016 campaign, gained unauthorized access to information for up to 87 million people who have accounts with the social media giant.
Experts also argue that targeting voters so distinctly using data can give some voter groups more weight than others and subject certain types of people to disinformation campaigns.
Young Mie Kim, a journalism and mass communications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that in a battleground state like Wisconsin, presidential campaigns will have to narrowly target voters. The high stakes for both parties mean data will become increasingly important next year.
“You have to move just a small percentage of people (to win Wisconsin) and to identify a target, you need data,” Kim said.
The problem is voters don’t know how a campaign may use its data.
“We don’t have control over our own data,” Kim said. “We don’t have any control over the flow of data. We just don’t know how (and) to what extent data contributes to turnout or suppression or election outcomes when it comes to voting preferences.”
Trump campaign calls voter database ‘unparalleled’
As part of its ongoing efforts to mobilize voters in key 2020 battleground states, Trump’s reelection campaign has been conducting training sessions to recruit volunteers across the country.
Since 2013, the Republican National Committee has invested over $300 million in its data program, which can pinpoint personal aspects of potential voters, from their likelihood to vote Republican to whether they have a gym membership to what magazines they might subscribe to.
The data can also be used to interpret what issues might matter most to certain voters so volunteers can have scripts tailored to each voter they encounter over the phone or in person.
These data points help point out potential support in voters just by looking at where their interests are, said Anna Kelly, Wisconsin press secretary for Trump Victory.
“If (a voter is) a white woman in college, you might think they’re more leftleaning, but if they subscribe to Garden & Gun magazine, then that might bring (them) more to Republican values,” Kelly said.
Mandi Merritt, regional communications director for the Republican National Committee, said Trump’s campaign has been on the ground preparing for 2020 since even before the last election results were finalized and has been cultivating its data to give the president a further advantage next year. If she could describe the campaign’s data operations in one word, she said it would be “unparalleled.”
“Data is one thing that once you’re behind, it’s very difficult to get caught back up because data is constantly changing, voters are constantly changing, the issues are constantly changing,” Merritt said. “Because we’ve been on the ground, in the field in states like Wisconsin since 2015, we’ve been able to just keep this data fresh.”
Democrats hoping to avoid 2016 errors, mobilizing earlier than ever
Bad data is one of the factors on which 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton blamed her loss. She called the Democratic National Committee’s data “mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong” — a claim that drew pushback from the operatives who worked on it.
To avoid the limits of its past data operations, DNC Chairman Tom Perez wants to overhaul the party’s technology and data infrastructure.
Earlier this year, the DNC rolled out its Data Warehouse, which aims to help campaigns and committees at all levels of Democratic politics to better store, access and analyze data.
Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, said they’ve been mobilizing earlier than ever, working to reach as many voters as possible, especially those in rural areas and communities that normally aren’t emphasized until further along the electoral cycle.
He believes Democratic investment in data operations can be shown from the campaign victories of Evers, Baldwin and Attorney General Josh Kaul last year.
“In 2016, Republicans had an edge on data,” Wikler said. “I think the deep investment by the Democratic side can be seen in the results of 2018, and I feel very excited about what we’re doing to empower our volunteers with better data this time around.”
Ann Muenster, political outreach director for the Outagamie County Democratic Party, said the party is trying to talk to voters they don’t have a lot of information on and see what issues concern them.
“What we’re doing now was something that was done in a very compressed time frame in 2008 and 2012,” Muenster said. “A lot of voters were missed because we didn’t have the capacity to do that.”
Muenster said she is also critical of basing how a voter might think on data points alone.
“Please let’s not write people off based on what magazines they read,” Muenster said. “If I were to go off of some of that consumer data, it’s really talking about stereotypes. I have talked with so many voters where I’ve walked up to the door and I’ve been like this has to be a Republican voter for sure and you’re just totally blown away.”
Using data to mobilize voters may also disenfranchise some
Though using precise voter data has been a successful factor in the previous campaigns of Trump and both campaigns of former President Barack Obama, there is controversy about how it’s used to approach voters.
UW professor Kim said she’s found discrepancies in who might be targeted and with what information. The prime target of data-driven activity will be middle-aged whites with higher education levels, who are more likely to turn out on Election Day.
“Every voter does not have an equal weight,” Kim said. “It will create some inequality in the political environment (because) certain types of voters are marginalized because they don’t generate enough data.”
Among those most at risk of being left behind are younger voters, Hispanics and Asian Americans.
“Younger people and Hispanic voters have a relatively short history of a voting record, so that data itself is very biased,” Kim said. “Asian Americans historically, their turnout record is low, so if they’re not so interested in politics and they’re not going to turn out to vote, why waste your resources on them?”
People in certain demographics might also be subject to messages discouraging them from voting.
In 2016, fake news articles went viral spreading misinformation to voters about campaigns and candidates. Other hoaxes also spread falsehoods about election dates and times suggesting Republicans vote one day and Democrats another, or that someone can text or tweet to vote.
Kim said marginalized voters are the ones who have been most subjected to these kind of campaigns and will likely be targeted again come 2020.
“They are targeted with messages like ‘boycott the election’ or ‘the election doesn’t matter’ or even like very deceptive messages lying about the time, place and manner of voting,” Kim said. “Those are the kind of things that happened in 2016, and I see those happening again. That’s something really important that we need to keep an eye on this election.”