Micro-targeting voters may be key to election

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON — With control of Congress on the line in next month’s do-or-die election, pollsters and politicians are poring over information on your personal habits and pet peeves to try to win.

Each side is now pinpointing its most “desirable” voters using demographic, attitudinal and consumer data. The process is called “micro-targeting” and involves feeding defined voter groups specially tailored messages, and then dragging or driving them, if need be, to their polling places on Nov. 7, Election Day.

In this new game of GOTV, or get out the vote, there’s no such thing as TMI — too much information.

“The more you know about anyone, the better you can target them,” said Democratic strategist Jano Cabrera.

Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican party, explained how micro-targeting works: “We have two sets of IDs (voter identifications). We have the Republican National Committee ID that is done on the national level, and then each state has the ability to add what we call ‘affiliation codes.' Each state will take different things they can get information on and add them to its micro-targeting universe.”

Seeking the snowmobile vote
Turnout in midterms is always lower than in presidential elections. In 2002, for instance, 33 million Democratic votes were cast nationwide in House races, a one-third falloff from the Democratic vote in the 2000 presidential election, while there were 37 million Republican votes, a 26 percent decline from 2000.

So in midterms such as the Nov. 7 election, each party must work harder to motivate its voters.

In their effort to defeat Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm in Michigan’s gubernatorial contest this year, Republicans are concentrating on voters who own snowmobiles.

“We have the largest population of snowmobilers in the country. We were able to get licenses, etc., and identify 400,000 registered snowmobilers, and we added that to their voter file,” Anuzis said.

Interactive 2006 key races The races to watch.

Last year, Granholm vetoed a bill that would have allowed development of a seven-mile stretch  necessary to complete a 2,000-mile snowmobile trail.

Just as the Michigan GOP did with snowmobile enthusiasts, “you could do the same thing based on whether they signed certain petitions or are alumni of a certain university,” Anuzis said.

Michigan State University alumni, he said, are more likely to vote Republican than University of Michigan graduates and that fact — added to many other pieces of data — can help focus GOP efforts and avoid wasted effort.

“Nothing in itself is a pure determining factor, other than party ID,” said Anuzis.

Democrats acknowledge that Republican tacticians such as Alex Gage of Targetpoint Consulting have put the GOP ahead in this cutting-edge practice, but Democrats are trying to catch up.

The beginning of the search for voters is the voter file: a record of who has cast ballots in the last few elections in each county or state.

Traditionally, a midterm Democratic campaign, for example, “would have looked at voting precincts where the 2004 vote for (presidential candidate) John Kerry was high and yet the Democratic vote in 2002 was low. They’d be thinking, ‘How do we drive up turnout in those specific precincts?’” said Michael Podhorzer, deputy director of the political department at the AFL-CIO.