Application Case 6.4 (Continued)
sophisticated and more efficient than the muchheralded 2008 process, which was primarily social media driven. In the 2012 campaign, hundreds of analysts applied advanced analytics on very large and diverse data sources to pinpoint exactly who to target, for what reason, with what message, on a continuous basis. Compared to 2008, they had more expertise, hardware, software, data (e.g. Facebook and Twitter were orders of magnitude bigger in 2012 than they had been in 2008), and computational resources to go over and beyond what they had accomplished previously (Shen 2013). Before the 2012 election, in June of the previous year, a Politico reporter claimed that Obama had a data advantage and went on to say that the depth and breadth of the campaign’s digital operation, from political and demographic data mining to voter sentiment and behavioral analysis, reached beyond anything politics had ever seen (Romano, 2012).
According to Shen, the real winner of the 2012 elections was analytics (Shen 2013). While most people, including the so-called political experts (who often rely on gut feelings and experiences), thought the 2012 presidential election would be very close, a number of analysts, based on their data-driven analytical models, predicted that Obama would win easily with close to 99 percent certainty. For example, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight, a popular political blog published by The New York Times, predicted not only that Obama that would win but also by exactly how much he would win. Simon Jackman, professor of political science at Stanford University, accurately predicted that Obama would win 332 electoral votes and that North Carolina and Indiana—the only two states that Obama won in 2008—would fall to Romney.
In short, Big Data and analytics have become a critical part of political campaigns. The usage and expertise gap between the party lines may disappear, but the importance of analytical capabilities will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future.
1. What is the role of analytics and Big Data in modern day politics?
2. Do you think Big Data analytics could change the outcome of an election?
3. What do you think are the challenges, the potential solution, and the probable results of the use of Big Data analytics in politics?