The Role of Innovation and Evidence-Based Decision Making in the 2016 U.S. Election

The Role of Innovation and Evidence-Based Decision Making in the 2016 U.S. Election

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Background When Reality TV became Reality

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Notable Factors •Fake News •Global rise of Nationalism/Populism •Obama Backlash •Rapidly changing media and tech landscape •Xenophobia/Racism •Shifting national demographics •The Russians!

•Decline of Legacy Institutions •Economic uncertainty •Weak Republican opponents •Echo Chambers

•Lack of Hillary appeal •Anti-Establishment sentiment •Bots •Sensationalist, gossipy news coverage •Media’s need for ratings/subscriptions •We’re going to vote Republican no matter what •The “Make America Great Again” Brand •WikiLeaks •James Comey •Low voter turnout •Use and Misuse of Data Science

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CLASS Themes Which was Hillary’s biggest mistake?

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Hillary’s Hamartia • Barak’s voters will vote for me • Traditional campaigning and media channels will work as they always have • The polls have me winning in a landslide • There is no F@CKING! way any sane person could possibly vote for this guy

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Moneyball Trump’s Innovations and Parallels to the book

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Take advantage of Market Inefficiencies

• The Electoral College • Free and Earned Media 7

Challenge Conventional Wisdom and Strategy • Digital and social media first campaign - Faster, more responsive, more efficient, more in tune with sentiment, more up to date • Incendiary rhetoric and themes - The world is falling apart!!! Everybody is the bad guy!!! I can save us!!!!!

• Star power/Freakshow effect - Trust me, I’m a billionaire./”What the hell, nothing else is working - let’s give it a shot.”

• “I’m just like you” - And Washington isn’t. Let’s drain the swamp.

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Seek Fresh Perspectives and Employ Alternative Expertise

Jared Kushner

Steve Bannon

Alexander Nix

Director of Operations

Chief Strategist

CEO of Cambridge Analytica

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Cambridge Analytica The same firm that worked on the Brexit campaign bring a new methodology for reaching and persuading voters

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Personality Assessment + Microtargeting = Cambridge Analytica

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So now what???

RNC Data

Own list of Trump supporters

External Data (Experian, Datalogix, Epsilon)

Email Lists (Newt Gingrich, Tea Party)

Lookalike Modeling

Cambridge Analytica

Project Alamo13

A/B Testing • 40,000-50,000 variations of targeted ads per day • Continuously measure and adapt to responses, by giving instant feedback to their automated AI model • “Did this swing voter respond to the ad attacking Clinton’s negligence over her email server? Yes? Serve her more content that emphasizes failures of responsibility. No? The script tries a different headline that corresponds to another personality trait - like their tendency to be agreeable towards authority figures. For example, ‘Top Intelligence Officials Agree: Clinton’s emails jeopardized National Security.”

• And the cycle repeats. If an ad repeatedly fails to engage, the system moves on to the next to save resources

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● Based on responses, the Trump team could see which messages and issues were resonating and where. ● This info was also used to determine Trump’s rally locations and important issues. If 73% of targeted voters in a Michigan county clicked on ad focused on bringing back jobs, they would schedule a rally close by focused on economic recovery.

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Voter Suppression • Targeted certain voters with a low propensity to vote, who they thought might lean towards Hillary • For certain blacks, ads from 1996 featuring Hillary’s “Superpredator” line • For Haitians in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, ads about the Clinton’s lack of relief effort after the Haiti earthquake • For women, ads about Bill Clinton’s philandering and Hillary’s lack of response 16

Phone App • Flagged certain households that the model showed to be “highly receptive” to Trump’s messages • Canvassers could then communicate with these households, based on their given personality type • They would update the app, and the data team would know in real time who had been “reached,” and where to continue their efforts • This made their GET OUT THE VOTE ground tactics faster and more efficient than Clinton’s; her canvassing operation was supposedly done on paper

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Meet our new president!

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Food for Thought The power and danger of data is real. We better remember what we learned in here, or we all might suffer the same fate as Hillary.

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