News

Trump’s worst enemy as he kicks off his re-election bid may be himself
By Jonathan Allen
NBC News
June 18, 2019

“Chris Wilson, a veteran Republican pollster and political data analyst, said he doesn’t put much stock in the traditional surveys he’s seeing now because they base their turnout models on recent elections — which may not reflect the reality of 2020 if Trump is successful in targeting and turning out new voters.

“I’m very skeptical of any survey today drawing their sample by asking people whether or not they’re going to vote,” he said. He recently conducted polling, based on voter-data modeling, that showed Trump in much better position in key swing states, including holding small leads in Florida and Wisconsin.

The other factor that’s impossible to measure right now is the effect of Trump’s campaigning against his eventual Democratic opponent, Wilson said.

“Donald Trump is going to have several months, five or six, to make the nominee entirely unpalatable,” he said.”

Read the full article.

40 Under 40 Winner Interview with Matthew Knee
By The American Association of Political Consultants
June 14, 2019

Matt is a veteran political data scientist with experience providing modeling, analytics, and strategic consulting to clients at all levels of politics, from state and local races to senatorial and presidential campaigns and national committees. He earned his M.A. and M.Phil. (Ph.D. ABD) in Political Science at Yale, and uses that background to focus on leveraging social science, political psychology, and statistics to win elections.

Matt was the primary data scientist behind the creation of the Republican National Committee’s Voter Scoring system, building the target selection system and most of the metrics and prediction systems that became the backbone of the GOP’s 2014 data resurgence. During the 2016 cycle, he redesigned the modeling system from scratch and massively increased its scale and speed, turning it into the largest microtargeting effort ever attempted and producing 51 billion predictions.

His RNC work won the 2015 Reed Award for “Best Use of New Technology” and the 2015 and 2017 Gold Pollie Awards for “Best Use of Analytics,” and his work for McConnell for Senate also won the 2015 Bronze Pollie Award in the same category. He previously served as Chief Data Scientist at TargetPoint Consulting and Principal at MRK Strategic.

When not working to elect Republicans, Matt is an amateur chef and board game player.

AAPC: What’s next for you this year?

Matt: Every campaign brings a new set of opportunities and challenges, so I’m excited to see what campaigns I’ll be working on in the coming cycle. But product-wise, I’m most excited to continue to build out WPAi’s Guided Modeling Platform to continue to produce models that are better, faster, and cheaper. Another thing I’m excited about is continuing to operationalize ideas about how to use analytics to tackle issues of identity politics. People these days so often vote on loyalty, offense, wounded or flattered pride, negative partisanship, and so many other non-issue subjects. Its time analytics caught up.

AAPC: Tell us about something you’re most proud of accomplishing in your professional career.

Matt: My role in designing the RNC Voter Scoring system and creating all the scores in 14 and 16. Beyond cranking out a lot of numbers, I’m proud of the systems that we built and the techniques we created to use all the data that existing paradigms didn’t account for having. This investment by the party really puts candidates up and down the ballot at a huge advantage, especially while the DNC is charging a lot for a product they haven’t sufficiently invested in. Also, relatedly, I projected Trump would win Michigan, so there’s that.

AAPC: To what do you credit your success at such a young age?

Matt: Hah, I’m an old man at 35. This really is an industry where if you hustle, work hard, and meet the right people, you can rise high early. I’m amazed at what some people have accomplished by 30 or even 25. I did the unconventional thing of being the weird nerd with the grad degrees and too many ideas, but most people succeed by finding a mentor and sticking with them, or just killing it at a series of increasingly-important jobs.

AAPC: What advice would you give to a young professional who has their eye on being a future 40 Under 40 Award winner?

Matt: Find a job where you can grow. Know the players, their incentives, and their history.

Know that an idea is only as good as people’s willingness to actually do it.

And, don’t believe propaganda; your own, or the other side’s. Understand how the psychology works and you’ll be better off professionally and emotionally. Persuasion is subconscious, so getting caught up in it makes it hard to gauge what works versus what works on you. Don’t be the person more useful in the focus group than running it.

AAPC: What’s the most positive development in political campaigns since you started your career?

Matt: To no one’s surprise, the data and analytics guy says “the growth of data and analytics.” We have a ways to go on smaller campaigns. Those of us who develop analytics solutions must make them as relevant and scalable to small campaigns as they are to large campaigns. But on large campaigns, it is becoming the backbone of decision making. It used to be that we had to constantly make the case for our existence, as distinct from polling and digital. Now not so much. At least it’s been a long time since I’ve had to say, “No, I’m not IT and I don’t know how to fix your computer.” So that’s progress.

Read the full interview here.

Fear of a blue Texas: New GOP group to spend millions registering Republicans
By David M. Drucker
Washington Examiner
June 12, 2019

Republican insiders in Texas are worried about the impact of a potential political realignment that could see affluent, college-educated voters in the suburbs permanently defect from the GOP to the Democratic Party. Additionally, they fret that thousands of Americans who move to Texas every month, attracted by the booming economy and low cost of living, will bring their liberal politics with them.

Engage Texas, modeled after a similar political nonprofit group that has operated in Nevada, is a crucial part of counteracting the effects of these shifts. Republican insiders in the state estimate that there could be as many 2 million unregistered GOP voters. Adding them to the rolls could ensure that Texas continues to perform as a red state, even as Democrats make gains there.

“For Trump, Texas is like Wisconsin was for Clinton. If the president ignores the state, the race could be close, and he could possibly lose,” said Chris Wilson, a pollster who has advised Cruz and other Texas Republicans. “But [Trump] campaign manager Brad Parscale spent years here and knows the electorate, so there is little concern Texas would be ignored. In fact, it is far more likely the Trump campaign puts Texas away quickly.”

Engage Texas also saves Team Trump from having to spend the considerable sum it will take to register voters in Texas. America First Policies and America First Action, the president’s designated outside groups, are generally taking the lead nationally on voter registration for the GOP.

Read the full article.

Power Up: How can Republicans bring back young voters? Good question.
By Jacqueline Alemany
The Washington Post
June 5, 2019

“NOT YOUR PARENT’S GOP: It’s not often you’ll hear us say this, but David Brooks asked it best in his column earlier this week: “The most burning question for conservatives should be: What do we have to say to young adults and about the diverse world they are living in?”

The existential question from Brooks to his fellow countrypeople was the cliffhanger of his argument that today’s generation gap — the most significant chasm in American politics today — portends a “GOP Apocalypse.”

So, we threw the question out there to some people who are paid to think about these things and prevent this from happening: What’s the GOP’s sell to the young voters of America, 56 percent who disapprove of the way Trump’s handling his job as president and 34 percent who approve?

Pollsters, campaign and party officials, and academics told Power Up that Republicans should and can attract young voters on the basis of individual liberty, in tandem with a message of religious and economic freedom. And that young voters, to a certain extent, might be open to conversations about school choice, arguments around drug pricing and merit-based immigration proposals.

• Liberty: “To the extent that younger people have thus far been liberals, as the left moves more and more to an aggressively anti-religious, anti-speech, anti-market, anti-liberty position demanding lock-step adherence in speech and action, it opens up the opportunity for a Republicans to reclaim the brand as the party of individual liberty,” Chris Wilson, a GOP pollster and the CEO of WPA Intelligence, told us.”

Read the full article.