Political campaigns compete with all other messaging for your attention but a close look at social and demographic data can help a campaign convert voters to their cause as stefan Turkheimer explains.

1. CUTTING THROUGH THE NOISE-
HARNESSING DATA TO WIN RACES

2. WINNING ISN’T EVERYTHING, IT’S THE
ONLY THING
• Resources on political campaigns are scarce, no
matter how big the race
• Competition for attention, or message clutter, is a
real problem
• So we’ve got to figure out how many people we
need, even before we decide who they are

3. POLITICAL DATA
• Past district performance, including not just your race, but
how your voters chose in similar and dissimilar elections and
candidates
• Voterfile – individual records on past voting behavior, as well
as simple demographic information (age, race)
• Votebuilder or similar, combines the voterfile itself with
additional demographic information, as well as past contacts
with other campaigns, phone number, issue preferences

4. FINDING YOUR WIN NUMBER
• How do you figure out how many votes it takes to
win?
• Incorrect answers:
• More than the other guy
• As many as possible
• Any other guesses?

5. OUR DISTRICT
• 750,000 People
• 600,000 People eligible to vote (VAP)
• 450,000 Registered Voters
• But how many of them will vote?

7. HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL VOTE?
55
60
65
70
75
2010 2012 2014 2016
Percentage of Registered Voters
Voter Turnout by %age Average Column2

8. WIN NUMBER
• Average: 67.25
• Low 65
• High 74
• Best Guess 70% turnout
• 70% turnout: 315,000
voters
• 157,501 voters for us to
win
• That’s our win number

9. 157,500 PEOPLE?
Actually, no. You only have to
get XX. Here’s why:

10. FINDING THE BASE VOTE
• Most elections in the United States are Partisan,
Democrat vs. Republican
• Some are geographic, North versus South, East vs.
West
• Others are divided by ethnic group, or by class (labor
versus business), or by religion
• Look at previous elections to find base vote for your
type of candidate

11. CAN’T DO
WORSE

12. LET’S ASSUME OUR CANDIDATE IS A
DEMOCRAT
0
10
20
30
40
50
2010 2012 2014 2016
WORST DEMOCRAT ON THE BALLOT
Democratic Candidate Vote Percentage

13. WHAT WE HAVE
• We need 157.5K
• Based on recent election,
the worst Democrat
hovers at around 40% of
the vote, so in our race
that’s about 126k votes
• So we need 21k votes.
How do we get them?
• 1) by maximizing our base
constituency
• 2) by finding bonus voters
(swing or new)
WHAT WE NEED
FINDING VICTORY

15. THOSE THAT WE TARGET
• High minority
percentage/GOTV
• High persuasion index
• P-12 High Liberal %age
• P-2 African American %age
• Low minority percentage
• Low persuasion index
THOSE THAT WE DON’T
WHAT THE CHART SHOWS

16. OLD METHOD
• GOTV
• Door-to-door, rallies
• The precinct itself was the
target
• Rely on your general
message/ broad target
• Use the
psychodemographic of
the targets
• Specific themes
NEW METHOD / SOCIAL
HOW TO TARGET?

17. P-12:
LIBERAL
BUT NOT
DIVERSE

18. WE KNOW FROM NATIONAL POLLING...
• That these folks like Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth
Warren
• They care about Women's’ Rights, Marriage Equality
• We can target them on Facebook through political causes
because their involvement is very social
• This group was key to the mayoral campaign of Nashville’s
Megan Barry
• But what do we show them?

19. GENERAL MESSAGE – RIGHT DIRECTION

20. P12 BONUS VOTERS: PROGRESSIVE WOMEN

21. BASE/GENERAL
• Broad themes/policies
• Must be inclusive of
specific message
• Specific groups
• Policies/issues that are
more narrow
• Must be consistent with
broad message
SPECIFIC/TARGETED
CAMPAIGN MESSAGE

22. P2: HIGH MINORITY %AGE
• Using an example from Philadelphia, Jim Kenney was
running for Mayor
• Needed support from African-American community to
win
• This precinct would determine who won
• Going into the final three weeks, polls had Kenney at
24%, Williams at 25%

23. GENERAL MESSAGE

24. P2: HIGH AFRICAN-AMERICAN %AGE