LA Times: Obama campaign’s investment in data crunching paid off
Great article about the Obama For America Analytics department:
Another campaign official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak for the campaign, put it this way: “It’s about turning over control to some nerds. And more than any other year, campaign leadership really took that leap of faith.”
It paid off:
Just weeks before the election, the analytics team’s assessment suggested a 30% to 40% chance of winning the state, Wagner said. But after the team added information about roughly 250,000 new voter registrations, the projection shifted, showing that 80% of the new registrants would vote and they would heavily support Obama.
When the computers spat out this data, indicating that Obama was likely to win in Florida, a howl went up from the Cave. A mathematician from the University of Alabama started it off with the ‘Bama fighting words, “Roll Tide!”