… The reliance, or perhaps over-reliance on analytics, may be one of the factors contributing to Clinton’s surprise defeat. The Clinton team was so confident in its analytical models that it opted not to conduct tracking polls in a number of states during the last month of campaign. As a […] Read more »
Algorithmic Bias: How the Clinton Campaign May Have Lost the Presidency or Why You Should Care
We’ve recently been informed that the Clinton campaign relied heavily on an automated decision aid to inform senior campaign leaders about likely scenarios in the election. This algorithm—known as “Ada”—was a key component, if not “the” component in how senior staffers formulated campaigning strategy. … So what happened with Clinton’s […] Read more »
The advertising decisions that helped doom Hillary Clinton
… Strategic decisions can make all the difference in a close race. Clinton lost the White House (despite winning the popular vote) to Republican Donald Trump on the strength of about 100,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. That is the definition of a close race. But a review of […] Read more »
Trump’s Data Team Saw a Different America—and They Were Right
Nobody saw it coming. Not the media. Certainly not Hillary Clinton. Not even Donald Trump’s team of data scientists, holed up in their San Antonio headquarters 1,800 miles from Trump Tower, were predicting this outcome. But the scientists picked up disturbances—like falling pressure before a hurricane—that others weren’t seeing. It […] Read more »
The Election Polls That Matter
… “Big data” is a buzzword, but that concept is outdated. Campaigns have entered the era of “little data.” Huge data sets are often less helpful in understanding an electorate than one or two key data points — for instance, what issue is most important to a particular undecided voter. […] Read more »
After New York Win, Will Donald Trump’s Restructured Campaign Turn to Polling?
Donald Trump got the victory he needed in New York to put the capstone on the campaign reset and power shakeup that has played out the past two weeks, since the Wisconsin primary loss widely hailed as a serious blow to his path to the Republican nomination. Now the question […] Read more »