Near the end of her book about Dark Money, Jane Mayer offers the following words:
Inside the Obama White House, as the 2014 midterm elections approached, David Simas, Director of the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, began to suspect that the Kochs had reversed engineered the data analytics that the Obama effort used in 2012. The implications, a White House official said, were, in a word, “huge.”
Computer had transformed the business of winning elections into a rapidly changing high-tech competition for massive amounts of voter data. Realizing that its data operation had fallen woefully behind in 2012, the Koch network took serious remedial action. Freedom Partners, as the Koch donors now referred to themselves, quietly made a multimillion-dollar investment in i360, a state-of-the-art political data company, which then merged with the Kochs’ troubled data collection effort, Themis. Soon the operation had hired a hundred staffers and assembled detailed portraits of 250 million U.S. consumers and over 190 million active voters. Field workers for the Kochs’ many advocacy groups were armed with handheld devices on which they constantly updated the data. Their political operatives could then determine which voters were “persuadable” and bombard them with personalized communications aimed at motivating them to vote or to stay home.
The Kochs’ development of their own data bank marked a pivotal moment in their relationship with the Republican Party. Until then, handling the voter files had been a core function of the Republican National Committee. But now the Kochs had their own rival operation, which was by many accounts easier to use and more sophisticated than that of the RNC. Several top Republican candidates started to purchase i360’s data, even though they were more expensive, because they were better. With little other choice, in 2014 the RNC struck what it called a “historic” deal to share data with the Kochs. But the detente was reportedly strained. Bu 2015, the acrimony had broken out into the open as Katie Walsh, the chief of staff of the RNC, all but accused the Kochs of usurping the Republican Party.
Absorb that.
Remember that as of now the Donald has said he does not care about data. Even if he did, given the antipathy the Kochs have expressed towards him, it is highly improbable that they would help him by giving him ready access to that data.
That’s the good news. And the bad news?
It makes it even more likely that the efforts of the Koch network (remember the commitment to $889 million?) will be directed down-ballot, especially to Congressional races.
Data is important.
A big margin by Clinton over Trump could overwhelm even the best data efforts on behalf of the down ballot Republicans.
Thought this was worth bringing to the attention of people here.