Voter Targeting
How campaigns use data, demographics, and modeling to find and reach the specific voters who will determine the election.
The Voter File
The foundation of modern campaign targeting is the voter file: a database containing the name, address, age, party registration, and voting history (whether they voted, not how they voted) of every registered voter. In the United States, voter files are maintained by state governments and available to campaigns and political parties.
Campaigns enhance voter files with commercial data: consumer purchases, magazine subscriptions, car registrations, and social media activity. By combining voter registration data with consumer profiles, campaigns build predictive models that estimate each voter's likelihood of supporting their candidate and their likelihood of turning out to vote. A voter scored as 65% likely to support the candidate but only 40% likely to vote becomes a prime mobilization target.
