Political technologist leading the GOP into the future of campaigns. Executive Director - https://nitter.cf/t.co/Wl3RRnn9ib. Writing & podcasting @campaigntrend
Washington, DC
Joined September 2007
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The fundamental lack of seriousness in digital campaigning on the Right, explained in two charts.
42% of Republicans running in competitive Senate and House races don't publish their own issue stances on their websites. Yet it's the top item voters look for:
New research from Center for Campaign Innovation digs into what popular AI chatbots are telling voters about the candidates in the most competitive races this year.
- What they get changes every time you ask.
- Citations show what AI reads and how campaigns can shape it
The DCCC website is cited in 146 answers about Republican House candidates. 12.5% of responses about House Republicans site one of their pages.
33 House Republicans had a DCCC citation in their answers. The structure of the page is helping its inclusion.
When we break it out by models, Grok cites a DCCC page in 24.6% of its answers about House Republicans, Gemini 17.3%, ChatGPT 6.5%, and Claude 1.5%.
You can read the full research here (more coming soon): campaigninnovation.org/resea…
Across 161 candidates we're tracking, this website is cited in 10% of AI responses about who they are, where they stand on issues, and why someone should vote for them.
You can just do things.
Ballot research should be easy.
It isn't — info is scattered across a dozen sites, half outdated.
So I built localcandidates.org. Ohio 2026 is now live: US Senate + all 15 House districts. Compare candidates, positions, fundraising, backgrounds. Free, non-partisan, no ads, no signup.
Solo-built. Feedback welcome.
We've got new data showing how this affects AI models' answer voters' questions about where a candidate stands on issues.
Among candidates in tossup races, prompts about issues surface a candidate's own website for DEMs 80% of the time, just 15% for GOP.
Really clever use of AI by the Collins team here. There's a narrative, clear cultural reference (Family Guy), good execution
Eric Wilson retweeted
Impressive @ThadKousser @namalhotra et al. field experiment had few effects on election attitudes of TX conservatives despite exposure to "an average of 20 online videos, 18.5 cable TV videos, 23.9 display ads, 3 text messages & 3 postcards" - high-quality content crafted by pros
Eric Wilson retweeted
Fundraising emails mentioning AI continue to tick up in the Democratic party---but still represent less than 2% of all emails they send. Will be interesting to see what the coming week brings.
You can check the dashboard, updated weekly as new emails come in at inbox.freesystems.net.
Proud to be a part of this event happening in a few weeks on October 5 at GWU here in DC.
AAPC will be sharing data from a national survey looking at how voters are using AI ahead of Election Day.
We'll also get reports from practitioners in the trenches
The agenda is still coming together, but you can register here: theaapc.swoogo.com/power-pol…
I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the role of AI in political polling this year. We've had some informative conversations on the @campaigntrend podcast this year.
My working thesis is that AI has something to offer when it comes to helping us understand voters, but we don't yet have the pattern recognition. So @CampaignInnov conducted a test in partnership with @ConvosAI to see how AI might help with qualitative research at scale.
We texted voters in 14 congressional battlegrounds with an open-ended prompt: What would you tell a political candidate who wants to earn your vote this year. The AI helped us probe with followups. We got 202 responses - not a poll and not a focus group.
The insights are directionally helpful with guidance for campaigners about the words and phrases voters are actually using to talk about political topics.
Instead of "inflation" voters talk about specific bills that have gone up in recent years and the pressures that come from it.
Truth telling is something voters want from candidates - this gets at the vague concept of "authenticity" we often talk about.
Unsurprisingly, data centers are emerging as a political concern for some voters.
Navigate the findings here on our site: campaigninnovation.org/resea…
Join Farz Sokhansaj from Prompt and me for a live discussion about what's trending in campaign tech a few weeks ahead of the election.
Thursday, 9/10 at 2pm.
Here's the link to register: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi…
Eric Wilson retweeted
I remain convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the most important thing a professional can do for his or her career in the Age of AI is have intentional conversations with three people every day.
