Over the past summer, I volunteered with Congresswoman Barbara Comstock’s (R-VA-10) reelection campaign, going to festivals, phone-banking, and going door-to-door. Republicans have a history of having strong, grassroots, ground-games, in a way that Democrats, excluding Presidential races since Obama in 2008, have failed to emulate. Republicans have data going back decades about voting records and tendencies. We were armed with mobile apps when we went door to door that told us what path to take, which houses to go to, which houses had Democrats and which have Republicans, and who could be convinced to jump the aisle. These statistics, in my experienced, proved highly valuable and accurate. While walking around neighborhoods, or calling homes, I would often be amazed by how precise the calculations and predictions were. We were able to tailor our pitches based on what we gleaned from the application, and we inputted what we learned from the potential voter back into the application, training the system for future users.
Elections have become increasingly data driven, targeting potential voters from the get-go, and not wasting time with party loyalists. Political advertisements have taken information from users’ tendencies and preferences to target their views, in the same way that Wal-Mart or Target (ha pun intended) would single out users’ traits. For example, as a college student, I’ve seen motley Bernie Sanders ads about college debt; however, I have yet to see an ad about social security.
Further, social media has begun to play an unprecedented role in elections. Republican Nominee for the President of the United States Donald Trump (wow, it’s honestly worse thinking of him with that formal title) can command the news cycle for weeks with a single Tweet. And, that’s his entire strategy: use buzzwords and crazy ideas to remain the headline. This also allows politicians to interact with the youth, as both Trump and Secretary Clinton are highly active on all forms of social media, ranging from Instagram to Facebook to Snapchat. In this way, they can access voters in their more personal fields, while they’re socializing and relaxing, rather than while they’re actively seeking news and information.
This, however, furthers social media echo chambers. The Wall Street Journal is able to compare Liberal and Conservative viewpoints on certain news issues based on the types of posts potential voters see on their Facebook News Feeds. Potential voters Tweet, Share, and Post media that they believe in, even they will do nothing to change your friends’ minds. Ultimately, you only see the posts for pages that Facebook and Twitter believe you will like or do like; thus, you will only see one side of the story. Either you’ll see NowThis videos, or you’ll see Breitbart report videos. There’s very little in between, albeit most of the nation is moderate, leading to increased partisanship and polarity.
I’m still not sure I understand. It seems like the app with which you were armed for Congresswoman Comstock’s campaign directed you to moderate households, but the algorithms that Facebook and Twitter use push each of us toward one end of the spectrum (i.e., you won’t stay in the middle) over time. How will the Republicans that build the app you used react if there are no moderate households in the future that are willing to “jump the aisle?” Are they worried? Or am I missing something?
Dean Smith, from what I’ve observed, is that there’s an odd balance. My constituency is stratified into highly educated and relatively uneducated areas. Having gone door-to-door in both areas, I realized that while people have strong opinions of the Presidential elections, they know very little of the local elections. Further, local elections are all based on “split ballot” calculations, where candidates hope that constituents will vote across party lines, rather than with just party loyalty. So, our goal was both to inform the potential voters and to distance the Congresswoman from Trump.
As it turns out, most households seemed very amenable to that approach – ultimately, most people seem to be voting for a person, rather than for policies, which is partially what makes this election so contentious and interesting. People really like Sec. Clinton’s policies, but they don’t like her herself. People may agree with whatever policies Trump has decided to follow today, but they don’t like him himself. On the flip side, some could not care less about Trump’s policies (because, it’s not like he has any), and are just voting for him or against Sec. Clinton.
So, for those reasons, our going door-to-door doesn’t preclude the increased partisanship, but sort of lives simultaneously with it.
Very interesting. Thank you for the additional information. I’ll watch these trends with great interest over the next decade.
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