What Data Crunchers Did for Obama

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Behavioral Grouping

For generations, politicians lacked the means to study us as individuals. So they placed us into enormous groups—blacks, Jews, gays, union members, hunters, soccer moms—and treated us as masses. While the rich and well-connected got to collar candidates at $1,000-a-plate dinners, the rest of us were processed as herds.

Nowadays, Spotlight and other microtargeters (for both parties) continue to place us into big groups. But the divisions are based more on our behavior and choices, and less on the names, colors, and clans that marked us from birth.

Spotlight embarked on its research three years ago by interviewing thousands of voters the old-fashioned way. At first, Barn Raisers didn't seem especially noteworthy. The group represented about 9% of the electorate. It spanned genders, races, and religions.

But when Spotlight's analysts dug deeper, they discovered that Barn Raisers stood at the epicenter of America's political swing. In 2004, 90% of them voted for President Bush, but then the group's political leanings shifted, with 64% of them saying they voted for Democrats in the 2006 election. Spotlight surveys showed that political scandals, tax-funded boondoggles like Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere, and the botched job on Hurricane Katrina sent them packing.

Suddenly, Spotlight had a line on millions of swing voters. The challenge then was to locate groups of them in swing states. For this, the company analyzed the demographics and buying patterns of the Barn Raisers they surveyed personally. Then it instructed its computers to scour commercially available databases for others with matching profiles. By Spotlight's count, this approach nailed Barn Raisers three times out of four. So Democrats could bet that at least three-quarters of them would be likely to welcome an appeal stressing honesty and fair play.

Still Swing Voters

Did it work? Spotlight hasn't yet carried out the surveys to determine how many of its Barn Raisers backed Obama. But it's reasonable to presume that amid that sea of humanity stretched out before Obama on Washington's Mall on Jan. 20, at least some of those were moved by microtargeted appeals. And if Obama and his team fail to honor their mathematically honed vows, the Barn Raisers may abandon them in droves. They're swing voters, after all.

And if there is one thing the research has made clear, it's this: Even if Barn Raisers exist as a tribe only in a database, they take broken promises very seriously. And they probably won't object if data-mining politicians figure that out.

Baker is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York.