It’s that time of year: election analysis season. In the spirit of this festive period, I’ll graciously say that some of these are better than others.
A recent New York Times analysis is compelling, albeit while presenting an oversimplified and unsubstantiated narrative. Namely that Donald Trump’s victory should be attributed to a superior advertising strategy, particularly his use of precise individual targeting on streaming platforms.
At the same time, Kamala Harris’s campaign is portrayed as inefficient due to its reliance on broader geographic targeting.
I would argue that the Times‘ central comparison between Trump’s individual targeting and Harris’s geographic-based targeting is fundamentally flawed. Each campaign tailored its approach to its unique audiences, circumstances and goals.
Trump’s campaign, facing a financial disadvantage, focused narrowly on undecided voters. Harris’s campaign, with greater resources, adopted a broader strategy aimed at both persuasion and mobilization audiences.
Declaring one strategy inherently superior based solely on the election’s outcome is a post-hoc rationalization. Had Harris won, the same data could have been used to craft a narrative praising the efficiency of her broader approach.
In fact, after nearly every modern presidential election, this same argument has happened over narrow-versus-broad targeting. A couple recent examples:
-After the 2016 election, critics argued that Hillary Clinton’s campaign relied on micro-targeting to a fault.
-Following the 2020 election, observers highlighted the broader targeting employed by Joe Biden’s campaign, which helped reach a wider audience.
Now, the Times piece raises important questions about the role of data and technology in political campaigns. But its narrative — asserting that Trump’s superior advertising strategy directly led to his victory — is unsubstantiated particularly given how the overall environment built a strong desire for change: inflation, perceptions of the economy, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, etc.
Electoral success is rarely reducible to a single factor despite the best post-election marketing efforts of strategists and advertisers — myself included.
To truly understand the impact of campaign advertising, we need more robust data, clearer metrics, and a commitment to reliable measurements that connect strategies to tangible outcomes.
The Times‘ analysis serves as a starting point for a deeper conversation, but it falls short of providing holistic or definitive answers. Moreover, it reminds those of us on the left of the need for a deeper, party-driven probe into what went right and wrong in 2024.
Andrew Eldredge-Martin is a Democratic media strategist and the Founder of Measured Campaigns and Ground Truth AI. He has led domestic and international initiatives for clients as diverse as Fortune 500 brands and U.S. presidential campaigns, including Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders.
