A new political “super-weapon”
There is a new player shaping the political campaigning landscape. Artificial intelligence, with its recent innovations, allows political campaigns to more effectively seek out and extract money from voters–and at a lower cost.
What’s going on?
Political consultants for both the Democratic and Republican parties are analyzing enormous amounts of voter data to determine advanced fundraising and persuasion strategies. By synthesizing large data sets ranging from purchasing habits to income, AI can predict how individuals will vote and donate.
- The Sterling Data Company, which works with Democrats, says it can more than double digital fundraising in the immediate term.
- Numinar, a Republican startup, says it “provides best-in-class voter file and commercial data out-of-the-box with over 400 data points to build an individualized profile of each voter.”
These analyses are especially useful for smaller, local races.
How does the software work?
Both Sterling and Numinar feed political and consumer data into an ever-improving algorithm that predicts voter and donor behavior.
In its marketing materials, Sterling says it identifies fundraising strategies tailored to each client:
“No data analyst in the world could look at over 500 variables, from household income to magazine subscriptions, and determine what factor played the biggest role in the success (or failure) of a fundraising campaign and rework the targeting to maintain or improve results — especially not in less than a minute.”
Software that relies on AI also allows firms to identify new donors quicker by calculating who has the highest tenancy to contribute to a campaign.
Do they work?
Martin Kurucz, managing partner for Sterling, says the company has worked with around 1,000 Democratic campaigns and political committees.
“This is a super-weapon that Democrats have…It’s probably one of the most overlooked reasons why the Democrats are winning the small-dollar fundraising wars against Republicans,” said Kurucz.
Numinar’s founder Will Long said AI and machine learning can “make a pretty difference” in how down-ballot local races perform. FEC records reveal that some candidates in key Senate and House campaigns paid for services from Numinar.
The bottom line?
Despite criticism from skeptics, who doubt that AI-software is truly advancing political data technology and claim that “AI” as a term is often misused in the political world, the technology behind political campaigns is drastically improving.
Long acknowledges the term “AI” can be misused, but says AI is an apt description of the advanced technology that political races are using across the country.
“We actually are using machine learning in a very core, fundamental way,” he said.