media
GOP pollster says there could be bipartisan progress on health care, infrastructure
This article originally appeared on The Hill
“No one wants to concede anything or actually have a conversation,” Maguire, a senior client strategist at WPA Intelligence, told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on Monday, referring to the status quo between Republicans and Democrats.
“I think [health care] is a great place for [both parties to work together],” he continued. “Infrastructure as well. They’re great targets, and they fit in with a lot of what Republicans did talk about in the midterms, and what the president has been speaking about.”
“I think it’s good to start these conversations even if they do start as arguments,” he said.
Maguire’s comments come after health care was thrust back onto the national stage last week when a federal judge in Texas sided with 20 Republican attorneys general who argued that the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, is unconstitutional because Congress has repealed the penalty for the law’s individual mandate.
The Trump administration has not defended ObamaCare against the lawsuit, while Republican lawmakers have largely kept their distance from the ruling, and have voiced their support for protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
— Julia Manchester
Progressives would ‘lose their minds’ if Clinton ran for president again, says GOP pollster
This article originally appeared on The Hill:
“I think the new wing of the party would absolutely lose their minds if Hillary came back and tried to redirect it back towards her,” Maguire, a senior client strategist at WPA Intelligence, told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on “What America’s Thinking.”
“They have fought so hard to really readjust the party and get themselves back on track, and Hillary would just be an absolute step in the wrong direction for them,” he continued.
Former Clinton adviser Mark Penn and Andrew Stein, a former Democratic Manhattan borough president and president of the New York City Council, both predicted in an op-ed published earlier this week that Clinton would launch a presidential run in 2020.
“True to her name, Mrs. Clinton will fight this out until the last dog dies,” they wrote. “She won’t let a little thing like two stunning defeats stand in the way of her claim to the White House.”
Various progressive candidates, including Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), have aligned themselves closely with Clinton’s progressive 2016 primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Sanders has been floated as a potential 2020 Democratic contender.
— Julia Manchester
WPAi Wins Campaign and Elections “Reed Award” for Best Use of Data Analytics/Machine Learning in Field Program
Utilizing Analytics for an Optimized Ground Game
The Greg Abbott for Governor re-election campaign entered the 2018 cycle with an aggressive focus on both vote goals and a clear aim to successfully generate Republican-leaning turnout targets at the individual level to support Republicans down the ballot and across the entirety of Texas.
The unique structure of Texas politics, where non-Presidential year turnout is extremely low (averaging 35% over the last three mid-terms) presents an opportunity to identify and turn out a large number of Republican-leaning voters who would typically not participate in a mid-term.
WPAi and our team, led by Senior Data Scientist Dr. Timothy Lee, began our effort to assist the Abbott campaign by building a predictive model of likelihood to vote in the mid-terms and likelihood to support Abbott. This yielded approximately 4.5 million individual targets for turnout efforts.
WPAi then helped the campaign plan the location of 180 field operatives who will be responsible for mobilizing volunteers to contact these targets by using an vertex-covering optimization algorithm.
This algorithm made it possible to effectively build field turfs for all 180 operatives across the massive and diverse expanse of Texas that were both:
1) Geographically contiguous and compact, and
2) Were scaled in such a way that a field operative who the plan called for to be hired 18 months from Election Day would have almost exactly three times the targets as one planned to be hired six months from the election, so that all of the targets could have the highest likelihood of contact.
The first wave of field operatives are already in the field based on the optimized turfs with a second wave planned for early 2018. To date, the campaign has already contacted 232,836 voters at the door.
What was the impact of data and analytics on the campaign?
WPAi’s predictive models and optimized field operative allocation is providing the geographic blueprint for one of the most powerful field efforts ever attempted by a state-level race.
To date, the first wave of field operatives and their volunteers have already contacted 232,836 voters at their doors.
What was the impact of data and analytics on the campaign?
WPAi’s predictive models and optimized field operative allocation is providing the geographic blueprint for one of the most powerful field efforts ever attempted by a state-level race. To date, the first wave of field operatives and their volunteers have already contacted 232,836 voters at their doors.
The pre-built optimized turf structure also allowed the campaign to adapt seamlessly after Hurricane Harvey inundated much of East Texas. Operatives were quickly re-assigned or hired to cover other turfs in unaffected areas of the state while Houston and the Gulf Coast recovered.
Pictured: The WPAi team (left to right) Conor Maguire – Senior Client Strategist, Ashlee Rich Stephenson – Chief Strategy Officer, and Chris Wilson – CEO.
About Dr. Timothy Lee, the mastermind behind this Optimized ground game: Tim is an expert in mathematical optimization and his current interest lies in applications of convex optimization to machine learning and statistical modeling. When Tim is not in the office, you will find him at local tea shop studying mathematics and reading Milton Friedman. He was once known as “the sniper” for his remarkable jump shot in Basketball. Tim holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, specializing in operations research.
Campaigns Whiteboard
McSally internal poll shows neck-and-neck primary with Ward
By KEVIN ROBILLARD
An internal polling memo conducted by Rep. Martha McSally’s campaign and obtained by POLITICO shows the congresswoman running neck and neck with former state legislator Kelli Ward in Arizona’s GOP Senate primary.
The survey has McSally earning 38 percent of the vote to Ward’s 36 percent, with 26 percent undecided. Public polling in the race, mostly IVR surveys, has shown Ward with a significant lead over McSally, who is yet to officially launch her campaign. Ward, who lost to Arizona Sen. John McCain in the 2016 GOP primary, was initially challenging incumbent Sen. Jeff Flake before his retirement.
“Contrary to what some public polls suggest, Kelli Ward does not hold a strong position in the Primary race for United States Senate in Arizona. The limitations of these poorly-conducted surveys have created a misleading dialogue about the state of the nomination contest,” pollsters Chris Wilson and Alex Muir write.
“In fact, before any campaign efforts, Representative McSally starts off with a two-point lead on the ballot in a head-to-head race with Ward with one-in-four Republican primary voters are undecided. This is a remarkable starting place for a campaign against Ward, who has been running for statewide office for two years now. The McSally campaign is in an excellent position to build a winning Primary coalition simply by increasing her statewide name recognition, and thus building on the existing ballot advantage.”
The poll also shows McSally leading with both men and women over age 55, who tend to be the most reliable primary voters. Among men 55 and older, she has a 40 percent to 38 percent edge. Among women 55 and older, she leads 39 percent to 36 percent.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is the likely Democratic nominee.
The poll of 500 likely GOP primary voters, conducted Nov. 15 and 16, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
You can find the full article here.