The Technical Side Of Presidential Elections
Beyond all the drama and controversy are well-oiled teams with money to burn. Check out the technical choices of a presidential elections.
The campaign to elect the next president of United States is one of the most expensive, media-frenzied affairs in the modern world. In the pre-internet era, the race was defined by stump speeches, debates, town halls and TV ads. These days, however, the race has become something else entirely—a social media-fueled, analytics-driven, voter-tracking phenomenon that is entirely intertwined with tech.
On The Web
It’s true that candidates still need a large physical team, a “ground game”, as well as canvassers and phone bankers in every state if they are to emerge victorious on election day. But what they need even more is a comprehensive digital strategy to make sure they are reaching voters where they spend a lot of their time: staring at a screen. Barack Obama was arguably the first candidate to fully leverage the power of the tech platform in his election campaigns. In both the 2008 and 2012 elections, he focused on online strategies like email marketing, social media and targeted advertising in a way that can only have helped him get elected. In short, Obama used the internet to organize his supporters and galvanize voters in a way that no other candidate in history had done—and it worked.
For The Win
Though Obama’s pioneering methods will surely be studied in the future, times—and technology itself—has moved on since his presidency began. These days, technology is no longer an advantage to one side. Any major candidate running for office has to invest heavily in their online strategy if they have any hope of being elected. With the presidential election a few months away, we’ve seen the two major party candidates—Clinton and Trump—using the various digital tools at their disposal, to varying degrees of success. Here’s a look at the areas where tech is playing a role in the 2016 election:
Policy
Any candidate hoping to hold the highest office in the land would be well advised to have a developed stance on tech and how they plan to both develop the sector and integrate into their policy plans. Clinton made waves in June when she rolled out her tech platform that she said would be a priority of her presidency. As TechCrunch reported, the platform was focused on five areas: “expanding the tech economy through education and R&D investment, upgrading infrastructure and connectivity across America, improving the nation’s relationships with other governments on technology-related issues, reforming laws on copyright and net neutrality while studying encryption and opening up government data to the public.”
Social Media
Like most areas of modern life, social media is hugely relevant to the election. Though both candidates maintain a presence across all major platforms, Twitter seems to be where most of the drama plays out, thanks to it being home to the journalists, pundits and pollsters who feed the election frenzy. A definite highlight of the election thus far has Clinton’s memorable Twitter-dis to Trump, where in three simple words—“Delete your account”—she embarrassed the Republican contender and won the favor of the viral news cycle. Meanwhile, Trump has seemingly mastered the art of circumventing traditional and expensive TV ad buys by using Twitter as a means of broadcasting his message. So far, pundits are surprised by how effective a strategy it’s been for him.
Data
Elections are data-rich affairs. Who will vote, and who will they vote for? What’s likely to sway them? What issues are the most influential? Both candidates have been using the power of algorithms to model questions like these. One of the most significant ways they do this is through voter file data, which can help campaigns determine what is most likely to sway voters who are registered versus ones who are not.