WASHINGTON: “Big data” could play a huge role in the 2016 US election, even if Donald Trump doesn’t think so.
Trump, who sailed through the Republican primaries using unconventional campaign rallies and Twitter messages, has indicated that he sees little use for popular data analytics tools to help target specific voters.
But analysts say he may be at a disadvantage in the general election if he stays on that course.
“In the primaries, he was only looking for Republican voters, and in the general he needs all voters,” said Alan Rosenblatt, a digital political strategist.
“Unless he starts to be more sophisticated in how he targets his message, he’s not going to have a good sense of where he’s going to win and not win and where he should put his resources.”
Trump’s rise appeared to take the wind out of the sails of data crunchers and the techniques that helped the 2012 re-election campaign of President Barack Obama.
Trump is defying the traditional wisdom in both political parties, which have been ramping up the way they use data to help candidates and their backers personalize their pitch to raise funds and get out the vote on election day.
Jordan Cohen at the digital marketing firm Fluent, which works with candidates, said the Trump campaign “has exhibited the least amount of digital sophistication or interest” and that this could hurt his efforts.
Cohen said email fundraising, which has become a staple for candidates, requires considerable work to build a supporter base.
“Now that the Trump campaign wants to raise funds from the public they are certainly at a disadvantage by not having spent the past year building up a big database,” Cohen said.
