Voter data gathering reshapes Michigan politics, sparks privacy fears
Lansing — It was four days out from the 2016 presidential election when then-Michigan GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel got the call: The Republican National Committee’s advanced voter score software was, for the first time, predicting Donald Trump would narrowly win the state.
McDaniel, at the Lansing Capitol Region Airport preparing for a rally with vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, responded to RNC Chair Reince Priebus by asking him to get Trump back to Michigan as many times as possible before Election Day to build on the momentum.
Trump was in Macomb County two days later and ended his campaign with an election eve rally in Grand Rapids. He won by 10,704 votes.
“And then we also did a number of digital ads using our data to target the different voters that we really saw we had a chance of persuading and turning out to vote in order to win,” recalled Steve Ostrow, an RNC regional political director who worked for the state party in 2016.
Read more: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/09/10/sparks-privacy-fears-reshapes-michigan-politics/1191691002/
