A New Category of Political Intelligence Tools Will Define Tomorrow’s Political Winners

The 2016 U.S. Presidential election presented a seminal demonstration of the power of big data and analytics in the modern political campaigns. While the overall spending of nearly $1.6B by campaigns was record-breaking on its own, 2016 was also unique based on the record-breaking spend on social media and the behavioral targeting data used to hone, with laser precision, the targeting and placement of social media ads. By all accounts, the behaviorally-driven, microtargeting strategy worked. So much so that in 2018, the former CEO of an obscure, UK-based behavioral analytics firm called Cambridge Analytica claimed on hidden camera that his firm played a decisive role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s election victory.

Trump’s campaign officials have disputed both the utility and use of Cambridge Analytica’s behavioral data. But what is not in dispute is that elections — the federal level, and increasingly at the state and local levels — will be won and lost based on access to vast, disparate amounts of data, as well as complex analysis applications and people who can effectively interpret and leverage the most granular data to influence voters.

While campaigns have always been, to an extent, “data-driven,” the game of influencing voter turnout and winning elections is no longer just about the raw data or polls. In advance of culling voters to the polls in 2020 and beyond, today’s campaign managers must deliver up-to-the-minute, immediately…