The Resonate platform uses artificial intelligence and machine learning, paired with the largest U.S. voter survey, to reveal a nuanced, real-time picture of the American electorate at the individual level. The Resonate Candidate Index predicts the rise and fall in positive content surrounding candidates in the Democratic primary. We’ve also launched the same technology to understand how voters in specific geographic areas are consuming media related to the impeachment inquiry.

To better understand the way that voters are consuming online media surrounding the impeachment inquiry, we tracked browsing on websites related to the term “impeachment”, and we weighted the value of the results based on the number of times that this word appeared in online media that voters were consuming in the weeks before and after the launch of the inquiry. Here are the results:

The map above shows every congressional district in the U.S. Areas that are darkly represent higher-than-average engagement about impeachment. Areas with lower-than-average amounts of engagement are in lighter hues of green. Dark shades of green dominate the coastal cities and parts of the upper Midwest, which tend to vote Democrat. Lighter shades of green are more prevalent in areas of the lower mid-west and south that are historically associated with Republican voting patterns.

But has anything changed in other traditional media bubbles?

Resonate has done a lot of research on media bubbles. Our data revealed that congressional districts can have a lot to do with the media consumed and whether it leans left or the right. The data showed how much impeachment engagement there is in the mountain west. This is an area that is historically associated with the Republican party, but it’s experiencing a shift away from that behavior online. Whether this is due to changing demographics in these areas or some other reason, remains to be seen, but the level of engagement seen in places like Arizona, Nevada and Montana was surprising to our data scientists.

In tracking the engagement with democratic primary candidates, we’ve also seen that there’s been a general decline in engagement with all candidates. Clearly, the impeachment inquiry has taken over domination of the news cycle.

How will machine learning affect the 2020 election?

In the past, the Resonate Candidate Index has proven a useful tool in gauging post-debate lift or decline in how the voting public positively engages with a presidential candidate. It’s also an effective way to gauge interaction with political news stories.

Stay with Resonate throughout the 2020 election season for real-time, AI-driven updates on the Resonate Candidate Index and other related indices. AI-driven predictive analytics like these help campaigns discover new voter segments that the traditional voter file and third-party data analysis could never find.

Want to see the platform in action? Schedule a demo now and prepare to be floored.

The post How Does Your Congressional District Feel About the Impeachment Inquiry? appeared first on Resonate.

Conventional intelligence suggests the early special election results are a bellwether for the 2018 midterm elections. Perhaps they are…but if we are to listen closely and objectively, what do these bellwethers actually indicate for campaigns throughout the country?

At Resonate, we leveraged artificial intelligence (AI) models to gain an advanced and unbiased understanding of how voter behavior in AZ-08, home to last month’s special, and media consumption patterns throughout Arizona can help inform targeting and messaging strategies this cycle.

Digital Media Bubbles in AZ-08 Called for Persuasion Tactics

This map represents the average level of liberal-conservative bias in online news consumed by AZ-08 voters in the months leading up to the April 24^th election. We call these pockets of political news consumption, “media bubbles”.

If the red on the map is indicative of conservative media that was consumed, does this look like a district Republicans carried by 37% less than 2 years ago?

The fact is voter patterns in AZ-08 drastically changed in a short period of time…and our models suggest this is happening on a real-time basis in districts throughout the nation.

By mapping out these media bubbles, our data showed the best way to win a plurality of the vote in AZ-08 was by adopting a persuasion plan aimed at independent-minded voters. Represented in the purple that dominates the above map, these voters were ready for messages that appealed to their policy positions and values, not just party bias or voter history.

Statewide Media Bubbles Reinforce Swing Vote Significance

This map represents the average level of liberal-conservative bias in digital news consumed by voters statewide. White space represents low census areas that fail to provide adequate scale.

Even statewide behavioral patterns reinforce the role independent and swing voters will play in deciding races this year, including the Gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections. As the map shows, staunch conservative and liberal media consumption is few and far between.

To add another layer of significance to the Independent voter, AI reveals that only 21% of registered voters in Arizona will choose a candidate based on their party affiliation.

The Bellwether Political Campaigns Should Follow

Early election results and behavioral patterns in battlegrounds like Arizona highlight the essential role of 2018 independents – even in races that were recently considered foregone conclusions.

To successfully track and engage these audiences, campaigns should embrace AI-driven solutions that keep speed with quickly evolving voter patterns. These tools are also capable of engaging an entire constituency, not just a broad party platform that is sure to let some voters fall through the cracks. Come Election Day, those voters may very well decide the winners and losers.

Want to learn more about media bubbles? Check out Resonate’s free SlideShare presentation that provides a detailed assessment of the media bubble phenomena in modern day politics: Breaching the Bubble: Establishing an Effective Counter Narrative in an Era of Echo Chambers.

The post We tracked a dramatic shift in AZ-08 voter patterns. How secure is your district? appeared first on Resonate.

For a deeper understanding on what’s happening in Texas, we leveraged Resonate’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform to analyze the current partisan divide in the state, focusing on how voters identify politically and then assessing the levels of partisanship present in their media consumption habits. Here’s what we found:

Republicans Hold Majority Support – Independents Outnumber Democrats

When assessing which political party voters in Texas self-identify with, our predictive models show that Republicans still hold the lion’s share of support with 40% — compared to 25% Democrats. No big surprise here considering recent election results.

The real game changer could be in the purple. Our models show that 29% of registered voters in Texas now identify as Independents. Such a big slice of voters not identifying with a party helps us understand the heightened level of uncertainty that’s crept into Texas this cycle. It should also serve notice to both sides: the path to victory needs to include a sophisticated Independent outreach strategy.

The Media Bubble Phenomenon: How Online Behavioral Activity Translates to Real World Patterns 
Using AI powered solutions, Resonate is enabling the modern political campaign to identify-analyze-target ideologically driven, private communication channels in the digital world, better known as “media bubbles”. These strategies are deployed to better understand political landscapes through real-time behavioral patterns and leverage deep voter insights to target persuadables trapped in hostile media environments. Learn more about the role of media bubbles in modern day politics.

Texas Bubbles
Media Consumption Leans Conservative –Liberal Consumption Also Evident

The above map represents the average level of liberal-conservative bias in online news consumed by Texas voters – at zip code level. Congressional boundaries are drawn to understand the various media bubbles throughout each congressional district.

Given our models show self-Identifying Republicans outnumbering Democrats in Texas by 15%, it’s no surprise that the behavioral data – represented in the above map – shows on average most Texans consume conservative news online.

However, heavy purple patches on the southern border and blue pockets throughout the state tell us the conversation is far from one-sided.

With six months until Election Day, there’s plenty of stories and facts yet to be told. The side that ends up controlling the conversation often comes down to who tells their story best – to the right voters – at the right time.

Want to learn more about media bubbles? Check out Resonate’s free SlideShare, providing a detailed look at the media bubble phenomena in modern day politics and how campaigns can leverage AI to disrupt voter behavior throughout campaign lifecycles.

Breaching the Bubble: Establishing an Effective Counter Narrative in an Era of Echo Chambers

The post Texas Too Close to Call? How Will Your Side Fare? appeared first on Resonate.

Want to learn more about the digital media bubble phenomena in modern day politics? View the SlideShare – Breaching the Bubble: Establishing an Effective Counter Narrative in an Era of Echo Chambers.

Statewide and local operatives in Pennsylvania would be wise to pay close attention to the patterns emerging in their target areas. Having real-time access to this level of voter behavioral intelligence will best position campaigns to:

• Identify emerging pockets of momentum prime for Get-Out-The-Vote and mobilization efforts.
• Locate and target high-yield counties and districts home to Independents sympathetic to the campaign’s messaging.
• Combat harmful news stories – as they break – by establishing counter narratives online that target and are tailored to sympathetic voters trapped in opposition media bubbles.

The below map identifies digital media bubbles throughout the state of Pennsylvania. The wave of purple indicates that the majority of Keystone State voters are having election-based conversations that are consistent with an independent narrative. Conservatives nor liberals hold an outright advantage in conservation control.

Resonate’s AI (artificial intelligence) solutions allow campaigns to see clearly into murky political landscapes like Pennsylvania by understanding how digital behavioral patterns are informing voter positioning throughout the course of election cycles.

Media Bubble Methodology

• Machine-learning technology, observing 10B online events daily, monitored all news consumed by individual devices located in Pennsylvania – at zip code scale.
• Automated URL and contextual analysis quantified the ideological slant of every publication along conservative and liberal lines.
• The proportion of bias in media consumption was calculated, at zip code level, by averaging the activity of all devices observed within each zip’s boundaries.

Understanding the Results

• The maps use a color-scale to show the average proportion of conservative news consumed per zip code: 0.2 (most liberal) to 0.9 (most conservative).
• Example: 0.3 color would mean on average, 30% of a device’s behavior is conservative in that zip code (by extension, 70% on average is liberal).
• White space represents areas where census is too low to provide adequate data.

PA-07

The above map documents real-time media bubbles throughout PA-07, a toss-up House race recently redrawn to advantage Republicans. However, the Republican incumbent who dominated the district in years past resigned this year amidst scandal, which changed the status of the PA-07 midterm from “safe” to “toss-up”.

The behavioral patterns we see in PA-07 today support how close things are in the district this year. While the voters in the western part of the district are largely engaging with conservative media, voters in the east have a demand for independent and liberal-based media.

This type of localized behavioral intelligence can serve as a strategic weapon for both sides. In the case of PA-07, Republicans can capitalize on the heavy momentum they have out west towards Lancaster, while Democrats can do the same in the east towards Philadelphia. When it comes to engaging the independent-minded voters who often decide the margins in the toss-ups, both sides should focus on the heart of the district where the minds are open and the conservation is mild.

Stay Tuned for More Resonate AI Behavioral Maps

In the coming weeks, Resonate will be publishing a series of media bubble maps like those seen in Pennsylvania, leveraging AI to measure voter behavior and sentiment in the most competitive states and districts.

Want to learn more about media bubbles? Check out Resonate’s free SlideShare presentation that provides a detailed assessment of the media bubble phenomena in modern day politics: Breaching the Bubble: Establishing an Effective Counter Narrative in an Era of Echo Chambers.

The post Understanding Voter Behavior in Pennsylvania – An Unpredictable Battleground appeared first on Resonate.

The individuals encompassed by this media bubble have at least one thing in common: the majority of news and facts they consume – in general as well as specifically in regards to allegations against Republican candidate for Senate, Roy Moore, – are the products of right-wing publications. Collectively, the constellation of publishers that comprise the conservative media bubble function as a private channel of communication with the Republican base, and have enabled Roy Moore to regain traction through a combination of spin and deflection without the burden of a counter narrative from a sophisticated opposition. For many voters inside this bubble, the conservative narrative is the only reporting they’ve encountered on the topic.

At Resonate, we combined the nation’s largest independent voter research with anonymized contextual, real-time analysis of more than 15b online events a day, leveraging artificial intelligence and advanced predictive modeling to verify the existence of this bubble and deeply analyze its audience at an individual-level. The findings presented here are untainted by political bias and rather a fundamental exercise in objectivity assessing outcomes.

The result is data that strongly indicates that it’s past time for campaigns, especially those in tight races, to think about cross-party political media bubbles differently. And it starts right now in the Alabama special.

Not your average media bubble

Common knowledge says political media bubbles are formed through self-selection among ideologically driven audiences and represent impenetrable groups with no signs of independent voting behavior. For these reasons, campaigns have viewed bubbles floating on opposing political spectrums as lost causes, leaving the voters within them to operate freely in a world of alternate facts and selectively edited narratives. However, our analyses at Resonate reveal these groups to be surprisingly diverse coalitions and differences in issue interest, life stages, and socioeconomic status provide a strong foundation for nuanced messaging.

What we have here in Alabama is by no means your traditional conservative media bubble. Not by a long shot.

Barack Obama voters live here. Pro-choice voters live here. Our models statistically prove that these are real audiences currently inhabiting this space in large numbers.

The reality for Roy Moore’s opponent, Doug Jones, and the Democrats is now this: there are not enough standard Democrats to win the special Senate election in Alabama. The Jones campaign will need to make precise appeals to voters who consume the majority of their news through conservative channels to tip the scale. Reaching those voters begins with knowing where to look and more importantly, what to say.

The Counter Narrative in the Alabama Conservative Media Bubble

Before analyzing the voters inside the conservative media bubble, we find it illustrative to pair the emerging conservative talking points alongside their impacts to the Alabama special election.

The primary narratives spreading through the conservative media bubble have provided a measurably successful counter narrative to the multiple damaging Moore allegations of sexual assault and molestation reported by mainstream sources.

The conservative counter narrative essentially maintains that all of the women who have come forward are lying as part of a left-wing conspiracy to destroy the candidacy and reputation of Moore, a dedicated public servant victimized for his conservative views and Christian values. These statements by rule omit critical details including that it was community-wide knowledge Roy Moore was banned from a shopping mall for harassing young women or that is wife was in the same high school class as one of the women making the allegations.

This disruption narrative that is almost exclusively informing over 321k online Alabama residents about Roy Moore’s character and past is a powerful one. It has served as a life jacket for the Moore campaign that all but two weeks ago looked dead in the water amidst the wave of accusations. If you look to the roller coaster polling numbers this race has produced you can see right into the power of the bubble.

Before the Washington Post broke the story on the explosive allegations, Moore led Jones by roughly 9 points according to the Real Clear Politics September-October polling average. At the time, this came as no surprise in one the most conservative states in the union that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in more than two decades. Although once the stories broke on Moore’s alleged misconduct, a Jones victory seemed inevitable…almost.

In the days following the original report more women came forward against Moore and additional members from the community went on record accusing Moore of similar predatory behavior. At this point, leading congressional members from Moore’s own party had heard enough and called for Moore to step out of the senate race immediately, including Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Alabama’s senior Senator, Richard Shelby.

As a direct result of the reports and Moore’s own party abandoning him, the polls immediately shifted in Jones’ favor in a big way. In a Fox News poll (Yes, Fox news) Democrat Doug Jones now led by 8 points, representing a 17 point jump from the September-October polling averages.

Now just two weeks later after Jones’ surge and with Election Day around the corner, the race has evened out and more recent polls have Moore back in the lead by as much as 6 points.

What happened? The counter narrative in the conservative media bubble worked and successfully controlled voter sentiment to a level that put Moore back in the lead.

A Jones Path to Victory: Identifying and Targeting the Bubble’s Persuadables

In a race where Jones and the Democrats now need every persuadable vote possible to defeat Moore in Alabama, they need to penetrate this conservative media bubble and change the conversation. This can be done by identifying the large segments of persuadables and leveraging their most relevant targetable attributes to deliver a message that releases them from the bubble and is worthy of their vote.

Of the over 321k Alabamians trapped in this bubble, Jones and Democrats should start with the low hanging fruit. These are the voters that already disagree with Moore on policy and susceptible to Democratic messaging. Our data shows that these audiences include:

• 2012 Barack Obama Voters: 26% of the individuals inside the bubble voted for Barack Obama in his reelection campaign. The Jones campaign should by no means concede 1 of these 83k plus Obama voters to a conservative politician like Roy Moore.
• Pro-Choice Supporters: 56% of the individuals inside the bubble also support pro-choice policies and upholding the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision. This puts this large audience in direct opposition to Roy Moore’s central campaign promise to repeal Roe v Wade and outlaw abortion.

Our analytics also identify specific audiences outside of Moore’s core constituency and those who are more likely to be sensitive to the mainstream media’s reporting on the Moore allegations.

For example, within the bubble we see:

• Non-religious Voters: 33% of individuals in the bubble rarely attend religious services and when indexed against the average Alabama resident, they are 32% more likely not to be in Church on Sundays. This is not an average Roy Moore voter who may have a pastor who has endorsed Moore or choose to vote along religious lines.
• Parents or guardians to Girls: A staggering 70% of this audience is either a parent or a guardian to a girl. By targeting this niche demographic audience with facts on Moore’s past from outside-the-bubble media sources, the Jones campaign can connect with their parental values and sense of responsibility.

Tight and unpredictable races like the Alabama special election are not just a matter of turning out the base. These races come down to who can find and win enough persuadables to cross the finish line. For Jones and the Democrats, this path to victory is through the heart of a conservative media bubble that has trapped a large segment of his persuadables. If he wants to win, he needs to go out and get them.

Bonus data point: 89% of the Alabama conservative media bubble can be targeted on Facebook.

If you want to learn more about Resonate’s ability to deeply analyze and target niche persuadable political audiences that deliver campaign wins contact Resonate at success@resonate.com.

The post Breaking Down the Alabama Conservative Media Bubble appeared first on Resonate.