The Voter Gravity team spoke to hundreds of conservatives about campaign technology at the CPAC 2015 Activism Boot Camp last week. Campaign staff and activists took away practical tips and fresh perspectives as they prep to make a difference on the ground this year and next. Here’s an excerpt from a piece by Breitbart News covering the event. To read the full piece, click here.
CPAC 2015 Digital Action: Conservatives Have Fallen Behind in Campaign Tech
By Warner Todd Huston
Conservatives and the Republican Party have fallen far behind the left in campaign voter outreach technology, and Ned Ryun hoped to help participants at CPAC 2015 learn how to gain that lost ground.
Ryun, the founder and director of the campaign operative training group American Majority, hosted a breakout session at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference titled, “Back to the Future: Catching up on Political Technology.” During his comments, Ryun warned that the center right is woefully behind the curve in campaign technology, and if things don’t change, it will seriously hamper the electoral future of conservatives and Republicans both.
In fact, Ryun said that, during the 2012 elections, the utter failure of Orca, Mitt Romney’s campaign data system, helped contribute to his defeat. Ryun said he feels that with the proper data system, the 2012 election was winnable for Romney.
It is calamities like the crash of Orca that Ryun hopes to prevent with his work with American Majority and his new campaign data system Voter Gravity.
After the debacle in 2012, Ryun realized that the center right desperately needs useful political technology. He determined that the right needs its own cloud-based database of voter files with front-end tech tools such as mobile aps and a voter phone bank system that allows users to quickly refine data for voter contact, using tools that can stream in real-time all necessary information back into the same database.
This is something that the Obama campaign fully succeeded in building, Ryun said, and it is something that Republicans need to emulate and quickly.
“Tech is a means to an end,” Ryun said, “it’s just a way to refine voter contact.”
But the human touch is still extremely important. “The most effective means to get your voters out is still face-to-face to urge voters to turn out and vote.” Ryun continued saying, “Going door to door is still necessary. One out of four people you talk to will turn out to vote for you.”
To read the full piece, click here.