The start-up connection of POTUS elections

Besides Social media, there is one more thing that will go down in the history as the defining feature of our times. Start-ups. Corporates were the talk of the town in the last millennium but now is the time for start-ups.

From household stuff to astronomical devices, from defence equipment to healthcare, start-ups are catering to everyone and everything. But there’s still one domain that remains untapped- the political sector.

Political parties across the globe are realizing the need for technological implications in their campaign to reach out to difficult-to-reach voters and convert critical voter blocs.

At present, the hottest political battle is being played out in the US in the form of Presidential elections. With both Republican party and Democratic party about to announce their Presidential nominee, the elections are entering into the final lap and both parties are banking on startups to help them get an edge over their opponents.

Clinton Clan

GroundWork is one such start-up backing Hilary Clinton win the POTUS election. Partly funded by Alphabet Inc.’s chairman Eric Schmidt, this startup makes vital use of data analytics and digital outreach to earn votes. GroundWork’s function is to ingest in loads of data and develop tools important for modern campaigning. However, not much information of how they curate the data has been disclosed. GroundWork’s CTO Michael Slaby played an important role in Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaign.

Indeed, their team played the most crucial role during Obama’s 2012 campaign. After building an electorate model and classifying 15 million voters as undecided, they collected data about these undecided voters’ digital presence, the events they attended, money donated and assigned them a score on how much do they support Obama’s campaign. Based on these scores, advertising campaigns were held and emails were sent to these voters to gain their support.

Trump’s Trumpet not blowing

“Trump Your Vote” is a campaign started by Long Island-based startup 25k Startups on Kickstarter, a fundraising platform, where they sell limited edition #TrumpYourVote tees. The team also plans on airing commercials supporting Trump’s election campaign. While Hillary Clinton has GroundWork, started in July 2014, supporting her campaign on the technology grounds, things are just not working for Donald Trump.

Buzzfeed recently turned down a deal worth $1.3 million for featuring their party’s political ads on its website citing Trump’s campaign promises. What’s worse is that a Chicago-based startupiKeedo is allowing its users to donate money to the non-profit political action committee MoveOn.org, which supports Bernie Sanders’ political campaign, every time Trump tweets.

Startups for electoral experience

Besides these two categories there’s a third one which is focusing only on improving and enriching the electoral experience.

Agora, a startup with its grassroots leading back to an abstract idea in Harvard i-labs, helps citizens to take an active part in political talks. Citizens can live-stream political talks, post queries and connect with people with similar opinions. It’s an exciting prospect for politicians as well, for they can reach out to a broader set of audience and can also conduct hassle-free Q&A sessions.

Another startup BallotReady addresses the rising concern of a low voter turnout. 2012 US Presidential Elections witnessed a turnout of 54.9 percent, with some regions’ voter turnout dipping to 42 percent. BallotReady attributes a low voter turnout to lack of reliable information about candidates, especially in local elections. This startup provides trustable info about all the candidates contesting in a specific region. This service would be tested in this year’s elections.

Then there is NationBuilder that helps parties in designing websites, processing donations, and mailing to their donor databases. Both the Republican Party of Florida and Hillary Clinton have availed of this service.

Given the current scenario with no clear advantage to any side, seems like startups could play a decisive role in deciding the final results for the POTUS Elections.