Politico brings us the story about Hillary Clinton’s secret weapon: her data scientist
Listed on LinkedIn still as cofounder of BlueLabs, Elan Kriegel also ran Obama’s battleground states analytics in 2011 and served as senior modeling analyst for the DNC.
What makes him so special? Per Politico:
What cities Clinton campaigns in and what states she competes in, when she emails supporters and how those emails are crafted, what doors volunteers knock on and what phone numbers they dial, who gets Facebook ads and who gets printed mailers — all those and more have Kriegel’s coding fingerprints on them.
Kriegel (as director of analytics) leads a team of more than 60 mathematicians and analysts, and Politico says a main function is serving as an “early-warning signal” of electoral trouble ahead.
This seems like a daunting task in such an unpredictable race. Who among us, including the man himself, can predict what Donald J. Trump will do or say next?
A main function of Kriegal’s work is to bypass traditional media planning with highly attuned analytics determining exactly where the Clinton advertising largesse should be spent, based on a concept of “cost per flippable delegate.”
It’s clear that the Clinton campaign believes data permeates all aspects of the political campaign process and is a stronger operation can give either party a distinct advantage. What’s at stake? Per Politico:
Some Republicans aren’t just nervous about losing to Clinton in November. They’re alarmed at the possibility of falling multiple cycles, even a generation, behind in creating a culture of data-intensive campaigns.
Read more: Politico
