The House and Senate are in Play
The House and Senate are in Play
Democrats Should Employ Precision Targeting to Win the Turnout Game
by Anshu Sinha, PhD
Chief Data Science Officer, Hangar
Anshu Sinha, our Chief Data Officer, joined Hangar from Hawkfish, a political technology and data effort backed by Mike Bloomberg for the 2020 election, and a diversion into the world of politics from her career in the private sector. In her role at Hawkfish, she was tasked with advancing the art of voter engagement from rudimentary models largely built on past vote frequency and demographic extrapolation, to models that incorporate commercial insights and real-time information, notably digital engagement and daily early vote data. Here she shares a few personal insights after watching discussions turn from a tale of impending Democratic losses in the Fall to a new narrative that suggests there’s a movement afoot.
Her advice: Democrats ought to remember that turnout in Midterms isn’t the same as Presidential elections; that young women don’t turn out as reliably as their predecessors and there’s no evidence yet that is changing, but that young, Democratic women are highly engaged in digital spaces and activating that cohort specifically in 2022 is a good use of modern advertising technology. For us at Hangar, it’s an example of why we believe data literacy matters so much -- having data is great, but understanding what that data is telling us is what is important.
Since the Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v Wade and the results of the abortion rights referendum in Kansas, the recent special elections in Minnesota, Nebraska, New York and Alaska have shown Democrats have an unexpected opportunity to hold on to both the Senate and the House in the midterm elections.
The abortion rights issue along with recent legislative wins have the base energized. The opportunity is real but the margins are small - in the House, 34 of the 435 seats are in close contention and Democrats need to win 26 to keep control. With turnout typically much lower in midterm years than in presidential years and partisanship so high, identifying and targeting those voters who don't need to be persuaded but do need to be turned out is a must.
Precision targeting can be a potent tool for just this purpose, identifying high support likelihood voters across the board and driving them to turn out. In the contested races for House and Senate, our data shows precision targeting can increase the target pool for turnout by as much as 4x by confidently expanding the target set over a more standard voting bloc like women 18-49 (more on this group below). This group isn’t just registered Democrats with a track record, it’s 15% independents and 12% have never voted before. Moreover, average turnout within these high support groups in the previous midterms was only 63% - leaving plenty of room for increased turnout with the right marketing efforts.
Kansas showed us that the keys for Democrat victory in the midterms are based both on turnout gains and coalition building through smart media spend and messaging. Turnout for Democrats was up by 23 points in this midterm primary over 2018, soundly beating gains for Republican turnout, with more than 19% of voting Republicans “switching sides” or opting out. And Unaffiliated voters, who could not participate in other races, made up roughly 18% of the vote. Since then, Democrats have outspent Republicans nearly 8-to-1 on media, with ads focusing on abortion rights. In NY-19, Democrat Pat Ryan made his campaign almost strictly about abortion rights, and scored an unexpected victory in a swing district. In Alaska, when Republican Nick Begich III was eliminated in the first round of ranked choice voting, 29% of his votes went to Democrat Mary Peltola and an additional 21% gave no second-choice pick, giving Peltola the win in a seat held by a Republican for the last 49 years. All of this underscores that the abortion rights issue can drive a coalition of voters towards Democrats, from the party’s progressive base to independent voters and even Republicans who believe abortion opponents have overreached
Turnout jumped in these special elections respective to primaries, but the numbers are still far below turnout in general elections. In Alaska, where the gain was the highest, turnout was up 79% over 2018 midterms, but still down 37% when compared to the last midterm general election. Democrats must invest to ensure turnout.
While traditional TV is valuable as a tool with scope and scale, precision targeting can be used for segmented and meaningful messaging, aimed at a specific call-to-action like voter registration or turnout. In the private sector, digital ad spend tops 60% of media budgets with precision targeting estimated as 4-5x more effective in cost-per-click (CPC). This election cycle, digital ad spend is only projected to be 15% of total ad spend - this is a missed opportunity to use precision targeting.
In the political realm, the best precision targeting is based on data science models for candidate/cause/issue support and turnout likelihood, built using previous voting history, demographics, consumer behavior, media consumption, and more to predict voter actions.
Accuracy of the models is measured and maintained through backtesting on historical results and polling. Through this process, precision targeting can cast a more accurate and wider net than a single categorization. In 2020, our team used precision targeting to drive registrations and turnout in key battleground states with critical success, generating over 60,000 voter registrations and netting the addition of over 80,000 early and absentee votes in key battleground states at a cost-per-action (CPA) of less than $10.
This year, Democrats also have a huge opportunity in that women 18-49 typically don’t turn out. They vote more in general elections, but consistently less than the rest of the general electorate. This means they have the power to shift midterm outcomes simply by showing up en masse. Data is showing that registration is up for women and young voters are motivated - precision targeting can be used to capitalize on that. Of the 34 House races in play, only five project Democrats to receive less than 48% of the vote. In every single race where party registration is available, registered Democrat women 18-49 had an average 9% lower participation rate in 2018 midterms than the general registered population. Making up that difference alone is all that is needed to swing many of those contested races to Democrats.
It’s important to remember how razor-thin these margins can be, so pushing turnout is critical. And a strong enough message could put codifying an amendment protecting women’s rights on the table. With midterms around the corner, Democrats should feel hopeful that both the Senate and the House are in play, but they must smartly use tools at their disposal to make victory a reality.