Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Florida are all part of the traditional route to the White House.
But the 2016 race may be blazing a new trail for the contenders, namely Facebook.
In fact, says A-list politics reporter Shane Goldmacher, the “path to the presidency will run through new territory—your Facebook news feed.”
Goldmacher is best known for great campaign finance work for National Journal. But he does a lot more, as displayed by his analysis of the changing, distinctly digital terrain of the most arduous of campaign races.
His bottom line is pretty succinct:
“As the race begins in earnest, the world’s largest social network is emerging as the single most important tool of the digital campaign, with contenders as different and disparate as Hillary Clinton and Ben Carson, Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders, all investing in the platform already.”
This is all about data and how Facebook, with 190 million U.S. users, can crunch information about your age, gender, location, interests, you name it. Throw in related deals it has with data-collection companies and it can meld further with a “trove of behavioral information, such as shopping habits.”
“That unprecedented combination is inching campaigns closer to the Holy Grail of political advertising: the emotional impact of television delivered at an almost atomized, individual level. It makes the old talk of micro-targeting soccer moms and NASCAR dads sound quaint.”
Here’s one of many assessments of political operatives who are working the campaign:
“‘I can literally bring my voter file into Facebook and start to buy advertising off of that,’ says Zac Moffatt, who was Mitt Romney’s digital director and whose firm now works for Rick Perry’s campaign and Scott Walker’s super PAC.”
A strategist for Sen. Marco Rubio (R, Florida) says they use Facebook more than any particular tool. It’s all about targeting.
But lest one thinks a complete revolution in campaign spending and tactics is upon us, there are some things that aren’t changing so fast. In particular, there is the significance of local television ads.
“Digital remains far from supplanting television’s supremacy in the ad budget, but it is an increasingly important supplement,” writes Goldmacher.
Whether the assessment really remains accurate or not, the political strategist class remains convinced that many prospective voters are ripe for being influenced as they watch the local news.
