Elections: Data mining, stats, voter growth

WRITE OF CENTER ENTER

In the U.S., political campaigns use data on more than 250 million voting-age Americans to inform their strategies and tactics. The political parties use data to target voters in specific ways, an edge that was key in both Barack Obama’s and Donald Trump’s victories.

Republicans and Democrats hire data firms to create detailed profiles of voters with thousands of data points and build models that predict people’s stances on issues or candidates. It goes beyond standard demographics (e.g. Caucasian female, age 25-34), to in-depth psychographics (e.g. interests, attitudes and behaviors).