I have been a fan of Sasha Issenberg for a while now, reading his articles on Slate.com, enjoying him on the Slate Political Gabfest podcast and then devouring his fantastic book “The Victory Lab: The secret science of winning campaigns.” So when I heard that he was going to speak in Toronto at an event hosted by the Samara Institute I was thrilled. I strongly recommend reading his book.
Mr. Issenberg’s speech was excellent so I thought I would share some of the insight I gained from hearing the author speak after reading his book.
Before you continue read Adam Radwanski”s excellent interview with Sasha Issenberg: here.
The J-Source liveblog for The Victory Lab: an evening with Sasha Issenberg: here.
This great article by Susan Delacourt “Polling and journalism: the future is in the details”: here.
What I learned from Sasha Issenberg:
- It is important to remember that micro-targeting is really high concept stuff and only impacts around the margins. It is good for increasing voter turnout by a few percentage points in key areas (which can make all the difference in a close campaign.) 95% of people care about the same 4 things more or less (like the economy, health care, education, etc.) There is diminishing returns from going too granular/micro in your targeting and messaging. Issenberg used the example that you could send every American a piece of direct mail about the local park in their community with Barack Obama’s campaign budget, but people vote on the economy not their local park.
- We know less about persuasion than we do about motivation. This was an important lesson for me from Sasha Issenberg’s talk. A lot of the sociological techniques/tricks/strategies that have been tested in randomized clinical trials were done for non-partisan, voter turnout increasing purposes. Academic research grants can’t go to Democratic/Republican efforts because of campaign finance laws. I asked Issenberg about using the methods described in his book to target low information voters and he was also asked about persuading voters to switch from one candidate to another. He told me that these methods are for increasing voter turn out and aren’t necessarily focused on educating voters. However, these techniques were effectively implemented by the Obama campaign to activate certain issues (women’s health and access to abortion) among demographics that would have supported Romney (middle aged suburban women) but then switched to Obama when these issues were activated. As a Liberal, getting Liberal voters to turn out is a challenge in-and-of itself. Liberals should all read this book, but we need to put as much effort into persuading New Democrats, Conservatives and Greens as we put into Liberal GOTV.
- Robocalls do not increase voter turnout. According to Sasha Issenberg “They persist because campaigns don’t read political science literature.” Campaigns spend money on robocalls because they have money at the end of the campaign and they don’t have enough time to hire new staff or produce effective t.v./radio advertisements. Campaigns don’t want leftover money at the end of a campaign because it would look like they didn’t spend the extra money because they weren’t trying. When Issenberg got the robocall question I don’t think he was aware of the special Canadian context. His straightforward, empirical answer on robocalls was refreshing. According to the evidence, they don’t increase voter turnout. Nothing beats a visit from a volunteer at the door. If you are going to use a phonebank, have volunteers use a “chatty” script.
- Shame is an extremely effective tool for increasing voter turnout. One of my favourite examples that Issenberg described was when a group decided to send people their voter history (which elections they had and hadn’t voted in) and the voting history of their neighbours. Recipients were also informed that also this information was publicly available and that they would receive an updated voter history after the election. This increased voter turnout by 20%.
- Another surprisingly effective psychological technique was getting people to talk through their plan of how they’ll vote. By asking people at what time they will vote, what they will be doing before they vote, and how they will travel to the polling station (and other questions like these) the recipients of the call were more likely to vote. This was even more effective among voters who live alone (the caller served as a surrogate for a spouse or partner.)
- Good horse race coverage needs a lot more self-doubt. Reporters should admit what they do not know. Here is a great piece by Sasha Issenberg on why political reporters should work on political campaigns (Why Campaign Reporters Are Behind the Curve). If any reporter wants to come door knocking, envelope stuffing or debate live-tweeting with me, they have an open invitation.
- We need constant innovation in campaigns. Political professionals need to think empirically and look outside of politics for effective techniques. There are many useful lessons in Mr. Issenberg’s book but there are many large and important differences between the American and Canadian political systems.