When Jim Messina arrived as Obama's campaign manager in 2011, he mandated decisions be based on data. The campaign collected over 80 data points on voters and used analytics to build profiles. They tested strategies through computer simulations run daily. Based on analysis, they targeted fundraising, ads, volunteers and messages. This data-driven approach helped Obama identify and mobilize supporters, raising $1 billion and re-electing the president in 2012.

1. Big Data Analytics in
Politics – Voted ‘Yes’
- By Suvradeep Rudra

2. When Jim Messina arrived in Chicago as Obama’s newly minted
campaign manager in January of 2011, he imposed a mandate
on his recruits: they were to make decisions based on
measurable data ……
A metric-driven kind of campaign in which politics was the goal but
political instincts might not be the means. “We are going to
measure every single thing in this campaign,”
Analytics predicted …George Clooney had an almost
gravitational tug on West Coast females ages 40 to 49
Analytics predicted….. East Coast celebrity who had similar
appeal among the same demographic, aiming to replicate the
millions of dollars produced by the Clooney contest. “we chose
Sarah Jessica Parker”

3. Goal Setting
• Raise $1 billion
• Very focused and targeted TV ads
• Understand better swing-state voters
• Measure effectiveness of every campaign engagement from
phone calls and door knocks to direct mailings and social
media.

4. Step 1 - Build
• Collect and build the BIG DATA environment
------first 18 months, the campaign started over, creating a
single massive system that could merge the information
collected from pollsters, fundraisers, field workers and
consumer databases as well as social-media and mobile
contacts with the main Democratic voter files in the swing
states.
• More than 80 different pieces of information were factored in -
including age, gender, voting history, home ownership and
magazine subscriptions
• The analytics team used four streams of polling data to build a
detailed picture of voters in key states.

5. Step 2 - Analyze
• Ran the election 66,000 times every night, computer
simulations the campaign ran to figure out odds of winning
each swing state.
• Every morning we got the spit-out - here are your chances of
winning these states. And that is how resources are allocated.
• Analyze data as to recruit volunteers, buy ads, tailor emails and
mailers, raise money, dispatch surrogates - and, most
importantly, scour the swing states for hard-to-find voters most
likely to support the president

6. Step 3 - Act
• Metric-driven e-mail campaign in which dozens of
fundraising appeals went out each day, with different
subject lines, senders and messages.
• First-time donors were offered a free bumper sticker to
sign up
• People who had downloaded an app were sent
messages with pictures of their friends in swing states.
• “Why did we put Barack Obama on Reddit?” bcoz
analytics turnout targets were on Reddit
• Online, first-ever attempt at using Facebook on a mass
scale to replicate the door-knocking efforts of field
organizers

7. Flowchart

8. Step 4 - Result
• People who signed up for the campaign’s Quick Donate
program, which allowed repeat giving online or via text
message without having to re-enter credit-card information,
gave about four times as much as other donors.
• Campaign found that roughly 1 in 5 people contacted by a
Facebook pal acted on the request, in large part because the
message came from someone they knew
• Helped drive the campaign’s ad buying too ..” if Miami-Dade women
under 35 are the targets, [here is] how to reach them,” said one official. As a
result, the campaign bought ads to air during unconventional programming, like
Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead and Don’t Trust the B—- in Apt. 23” “
…….as said, in politics, the era of big data has arrived.

9. Bibliography/Reference
• How President Obama’s campaign used big data to rally
individual voters http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/509026/how-
obamas-team-used-big-data-to-rally-voters/
• http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-
who-helped-obama-win/#ixzz2KOSn3Y1S
• How Obama's Campaign Used Big Data to Win the
Election - http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/2012/11/19/316443-how-obamas-
campaign-used-big-data-w-the.htm

10. Bibliography/Reference
• How President Obama’s campaign used big data to rally
individual voters http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/509026/how-
obamas-team-used-big-data-to-rally-voters/
• http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-
who-helped-obama-win/#ixzz2KOSn3Y1S
• How Obama's Campaign Used Big Data to Win the
Election - http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/2012/11/19/316443-how-obamas-
campaign-used-big-data-w-the.htm