Watch golf? Own guns? Trump data team has ads just for you
The pundits were wrong, Ronna McDaniel decided. Donald Trump was viable in Michigan; she had seen the data. Even in famously purple Macomb County, the Michigan Republican Party chairwoman at the time was confident in Mr. Trump鈥檚 chances.
鈥淲e knew that something was happening in Macomb County that the rest of the country was not seeing,鈥� said Ms. McDaniel, now the Republican National聽Committee chairwoman, speaking at a Monitor Breakfast last month.聽
History bore her out. And the same data operation that defied political expectations and helped place Mr. Trump in the White House has returned for Round 2 鈥� organized, flush with cash, and armed with reams of voter data dating back to 2012.
Why We Wrote This
It鈥檚 Red versus Blue in the race to personalize political ads online. Is digital politics becoming too manipulative?
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the beauty of our data: allowing us to customize for the voter and then target them through digital mail, phones, and door knocks. And really have a conversation based on the things that we know they care about,鈥� said Ms. McDaniel.
Meanwhile, the Democratic party is candidate-less, in debt, and banking on recent in a new data exchange to recapture the magic that fueled President Barack Obama鈥檚 victories.
鈥淭he benefits to being an incumbent extend far beyond 鈥� name recognition and having existing relationships with supporters. It means that candidates are able to build systems and collect data for years in advance of the general election,鈥� says Daniel Kreiss, an associate political communications professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
However, Google upended the 2020 digital arms race last month by its digital advertisement policy to restrict who political campaigns could target. decried the move, saying it doesn鈥檛 address advertisements that spread lies or misinformation, which they see as crucial in the wake of a 2016 presidential election marked by digital disinformation.
If Facebook enacts similar rules, as many experts predict, it could radically alter campaign strategy and the 2020 trajectory. While it鈥檚 difficult to measure microtargeting鈥檚 impact, there鈥檚 no doubt that it was a factor in Donald Trump鈥檚 victory in 2016, and Democrats聽see these tools as crucial to winning in 2020. Depending on Facebook鈥檚 moves, campaigns will need to get creative, says Republican digital strategist Eric Wilson.
鈥淵ou鈥檙e going to see campaigns looking at other ad networks and other platforms and working with people who will allow this kind of targeting,鈥� he says. 鈥淓lections are won with votes and we鈥檝e got to find the voters.鈥�
Republican juggernaut
Losing to President Obama in the 2012 election left Republicans smarting and determined to level the technological playing field. GOP officials say they have invested over $300 million into their data operation since then and have collected roughly 3,000 data points on every voter in the country, in a system jointly owned by the Trump campaign and the RNC.
鈥淒onald Trump has a more sophisticated operation than anybody else does,鈥� says Laura Edelson, a computer scientist at New York University who studies online political communication. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e being very conscious about tracking not just who goes to a Donald Trump rally, but maybe who goes to some kind of event that indicates they might be open to this message, something like a gun show.鈥澛�
Mobilization, rather than persuasion, is the campaigns鈥� focus a year out, say political analysts. The campaigns try to get potential voters onto what鈥檚 called the 鈥渓adder of engagement,鈥� which is a marketing term for getting a customer (or voter) more and more interested and involved in the product (or candidate).
Getting voters onto this ladder has allowed the Trump campaign to build small-dollar donor lists and amass a giant war chest, says Michael Luciani, CEO of The Tuesday Co., whose app organizes campaign volunteers digitally.
鈥淲ith money to run targeted advertisements, you can get more people to sign up as donors and collect more data, which allows you to both pay for and better target more advertisements,鈥� he says.
This cycle and strategy helped the Trump campaign and the RNC raise a gobsmacking this year, more than five times as much as the DNC.聽(The four top-polling Democratic presidential candidates have raised about $220 million among them.) The GOP campaign is also on Google and Facebook advertisements than the top Democratic candidates by a wide margin, but that disparity could change if a clear front-runner emerges.
Raising money doesn鈥檛 just fill a campaign鈥檚 coffers. It also stuffs spreadsheets.聽
鈥淎 lot of what is useful about doing something like microtargeting on Facebook is not just that you can give someone a message that is really tailor-targeted to them,鈥� says Ms. Edelson. 鈥淵ou get back really tailor-targeted information about how they responded to that message.鈥�
Microtargeting or tailoring a political message to a person鈥檚 behaviors, attitudes, or beliefs helps campaigns figure out how to get a supporter even more engaged or move them up the ladder of engagement, says Bryan Whitaker, CIO for TargetSmart, a Democratic political analytics firm.
These tactics also allow campaigns to get creative in locating slivers of the population amenable to their message. For the GOP, that meant finding people who watched the Golf Channel or attended gun shows, and crafting an ad specifically to their tastes rather than an appeal to broad swaths of the population.
The Trump campaign doesn鈥檛 hoard this data either. They release the voter file, no strings attached, to any Republican running in any election across the country.聽
鈥淲hether you鈥檙e running for President or local dog catcher, any candidate in the country with an 鈥楻鈥� next to their name can access our data free of charge in our party-centric model that benefits all Republican candidates,鈥� said RNC spokesman Michael Joyce in an email to the Monitor.
Democrats play catch-up
Democrats, though, place more restrictions on their data. Presidential candidates who the highly-coveted voter file must pay $175,000 and help the DNC raise money through fundraisers and other events. Candidates are 鈥渋nvesting in the DNC鈥檚 infrastructure, including overhauling our data and technology,鈥� the DNC wrote in an email to the Monitor.
Since President Obama鈥檚 highly-touted data team in the 2012 election, the Democratic party has been playing catch-up. Part of that was unavoidable: saddled with after 2012, the Democratic National Committee couldn鈥檛 afford to keep the team intact. (The DNC is $7 million in debt.)
One of the stars of that campaign was Vertica, which housed all the voter data and was considered quite cutting-edge. As the years passed, however, the technology grew bloated and unwieldy 鈥� so much so that after the 2016 election Hillary Clinton famously the party鈥檚 data operation and said she 鈥渋nherited nothing鈥� when she became the presidential candidate.
鈥淭hink about it this way: you鈥檝e got a brand-new Mac laptop and it moves real fast, it鈥檚 real nimble,鈥� says Mr. Whitaker. 鈥淎nd six years later you鈥檙e like, oh my God, why is this thing just like so slow?鈥�
Replacing this outdated system became the party鈥檚 top priority under new DNC Chair Tom Perez. The party unveiled Vertica鈥檚 replacement earlier this year: Data Warehouse, a Google- and cloud-based platform that can handle massive data sets and analyses that so often crashed Vertica.
The second change was the establishment of the Democratic Data Exchange, which allows the party to exchange data with outside political groups. Data Trust, the GOP equivalent, has been around since 2011 and has fueled their recent success. Mr. Whitaker says with the creation of the exchange, the Democrats have 鈥済otten all of our pieces in place鈥� to challenge Republicans in 2020. That said, the party still lacks a presidential candidate. Until one of the Democratic hopefuls wins, the DNC won鈥檛 have a partner with which to merge money streams, and develop聽a data strategy to match the unified Republican front.聽
鈥淭his is, again, one of those advantages of incumbency,鈥� says Mr. Kreiss. 鈥淚t would be impossible and unreasonable for us to expect Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders to be doing a 鈥榲ote Democrat鈥� pitch right now or raising money or collecting email addresses for the party.鈥�
鈥淚n general, Republican presidents have invested more in party building and that extends to things like data operations.鈥�
Ad policy change
Google鈥檚 policy change means political campaigns will only be able to target people based on their age, gender, or location. Previously, it was an open field. A person鈥檚 political leanings or search history was fair game, as was tracking a user once they visit the campaign鈥檚 website.
Elections are about vying for eyeballs and finding votes, and limiting campaigns鈥� tools limits their ability to reach potential supporters, says Mr. Wilson, the Republican strategist.
鈥淚t鈥檒l be more difficult for campaigns to build their email lists and raise money from grassroots donors because you鈥檙e limiting your ability on how to reach them,鈥� he says.
These changes will help incumbents and hamstring campaigns without much pre-existing infrastructure, says Mr. Luciani.
鈥淚t makes it harder and more expensive to build your list of potential supporters,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t means that you also have to tailor your message to a broader audience. You can鈥檛 just microtarget people you know will support you. You鈥檙e going to be targeting a wider swath of the population.鈥�
Both parties echo the utility of microtargeting, but it鈥檚 trickier to figure out what these effects have on the people being targeted. Mr. Kreiss says this engagement cycle and digital ads overall have created an ethos of almost perpetual mobilization.
鈥淚f you look at the Trump ads, they鈥檙e always asking their supporters to do things,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e asking their supporters to click a link, to give money, to sign up, to volunteer, to give over their email address. They鈥檙e being asked to engage and do more on a regular basis much more often than what would have been the case 20, 30 years ago.鈥澛�
That perpetual mobilization would not be possible without Silicon Valley鈥檚 social media giants, all of whom are reckoning with their role as communities fueled by and facilitators of political speech. Twitter and now Google have announced targeting restrictions, and Facebook seems likely to follow suit in enacting rules that could have an outsized impact upon future elections.
鈥淲hat content do people consider political?鈥� says Ms. Edelson. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not entirely clear if a politician runs an ad that has no overt political message and says something like 鈥楬appy Holidays鈥� 鈥� is that a political message? Does it influence people鈥檚 perceptions of a politician? Those are things that we鈥檙e actively trying to get answers to.鈥�
