Progressive Incubator Looks to ‘De-Risk’ New Tech for Campaigns

Democratic and progressive startups have boasted for years that they’re on the cutting edge of political tech. 

But they have a problem: getting campaigns and organizations to actually use the new tools they’ve developed.

“Politics in general is a pretty risk-averse space. It has to be,” said Betsy Hoover, the founder and managing partner at the progressive venture fund Higher Ground Labs. “Every campaign is time constrained, resource constrained – there’s an end date where to win or lose. Any campaign manager is going to be reluctant to test something new. They’re going to be more likely to run the playbook that they’ve seen win before.”

“As a result, things have to be significantly de-risked in order for campaigns and also many progressive organizations to really buy into them. But there’s no one doing that de-risking.”

A New Nonprofit

Enter the Higher Ground Institute, a nonprofit initiative launched by HGL and Cooperative Impact Lab in January. The idea behind the institute is to be an incubator for innovation and experimentation that can ease the path for campaigns and organizations to adopt new political tech. 

The institute is headed up by Jose Cornejo, who previously worked with HGL’s Progressive AI Lab and did stints at both the DNC and DLCC. In an interview with C&E, Cornejo said that the 2024 elections made it clearer than ever that the left needed to rethink its approach to emerging campaign tech. 

“For us, we’ve been talking about it before the election,” Corjeno said. “But once we saw some of the stories come out after the election about things like underinvestment in organic media or a real focus on analytic door knocks without looking at whether they were effective or were they doing what they’re supposed to be doing, it really validated for us that this was a sticking point in how our space moves forward.”

‘It’s Really Hard to Break That Cycle’

One of the most glaring examples of campaigns’ reluctance to adopt new technology emerged in 2024. In a year that was widely expected to be the first “AI election,” the emerging tech ultimately saw only limited use. 

Some campaigns and causes used AI for smaller tasks, like drafting scripts or emails. But uncertainty over the new technology and its efficacy in political outreach and strategy prompted many consultants and campaign officials to stick with more traditional strategies and tools.

“The slow-to-adopt mindset is really endemic in this space,” Cornejo said. “It’s really hard to break that cycle, and we see the institute as a key part of that.”

The Higher Ground Institute functions as an entirely separate organization from HGL, with a different governing board and its own funding streams. But both Hoover and Cornejo said the relationship between the two entities is “symbiotic.” 

“What we learn at the institute and what we’re able to publish is going to help hone and sharpen HGL’s investment focus in terms of what tech they’re going to bring onto market,” Cornejo said.

Hoover said that the lessons learned from the Higher Ground Institute will ultimately help HGL decide where to put its money and resources.

“Before we make bets with investment dollars and what’s going to work to help power those campaigns, we wanted to create a space for rapid innovation and testing so we can learn a little bit more about what works, share it with the ecosystem more broadly and hopefully then inform our investment thesis moving forward,” Hoover said.