Data and the Midterm Elections: Enigma Public Call for Submissions
Calling all public data enthusiasts! To celebrate the launch of Enigma Public’s Python SDK, Enigma is hosting a contest for projects – ranging from data science to data visualization, data journalism and more – featuring Enigma’s public data in exploration of the upcoming U.S. elections.
We are excited to incentivize the creation of data-driven projects, exploring the critical U.S. midterm elections this fall. In this turbulent and confusing period in U.S. politics, data can help us interpret and understand both the news we’re reading and changes we’re seeing.
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One of the suggested ideas:
Census Bureau data on voter registration by demographic category.
shows that Lakoff’s point about Clinton losing educated women around Philadelphia, “her” demographic, has failed to register with political types.
Let me say it in bold type: Demographics are not a reliable indicator of voting behavior.
Twice? Demographics are not a reliable indicator of voting behavior.
Demographics are easy to gather. Demographics are easy to analyze. But easy to gather and analyze, does not equal useful in planning campaign strategy.
Here’s an idea: Don’t waste money on traditional demographics, voting patterns, etc., but enlist vendors who market to those voting populations to learn what they focus on for their products.
There’s no golden bullet but repeating the mistakes of the past is a step towards repeating the failures of the past. (How would you like to be known as the only candidate for president beaten by a WWF promoter? That’s got to sting.)