Mark Funkhouser

When we talk about the youth movement in America and ways to get us to engage and participate in the process we often find a huge amount of ambiguity – little hard data/evidence (except the Harvard Institute of Politics or the CIRCLE research) and even fewer willing to conduct experiments into microtargeting the 18-30 demographic.

A few months ago I read a great article that talked about microtargeting Labor Supporters in California. Seems the California Labor Federation was beginning to notice that the stereo-types about supportive labor voters were no longer true. Because the world has evolved – not all labor supporters live in urban areas. Some now living in outer lying surburbes or even rural counties. The CLF’s Chair Art Pulaski decided to look outside the box:

“The shifting demographics of the country mean you have to look for them in non-traditional ways and sometimes in unexpected places…

Traditional targeting has always told us to focus on union members and their families in big cities, and that’s where most labor resources went for persuasion and GOTV efforts in years past. But it’s important not to build a targeting model for today’s voters based on outdated demographic patterns. Understanding that pro-labor voters aren’t just urban union members and their families anymore, we at Winning Directions worked with the CLF team to help find California’s pro-labor voters, wherever they live.”