Americans for Prosperity app helps campaign workers get your vote in North Carolina
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Campaign workers and special interest groups are waging part of the battle on the ground for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina from the palm of their hand. A new smartphone app is giving volunteers an inside edge when they knock on doors.
"Everybody runs out of the same thing in elections cycles and it's called time, and so you have to be as efficient as possible and far more targeted in your messaging," said Americans for Prosperity North Carolina Director Donald Bryson.
Foot soldiers with the right-leaning policy group have an app downloaded onto their iPhones and iPads that has neighborhood maps, addresses, political affiliations, voting records, background information and pre-loaded scripts on how to talk to specific voters they've already identified as conservative.
"I'll go to the door and I'll know that I'm looking for - 'John Smith', male, age 51," Bryson explained. "We're talking to people that are high affinity in that they agree with us on the issues, but low propensity in that they don't vote very often."
Using hundreds of data points and consumer information is the same micro-targeting technique perfected by the Obama for America Campaign used to steamroll Republicans in 2008. That campaign had more vocal grassroots support from liberal groups like Planned Parenthood for example. AFP has learned the way of its rivals, tweaked its approach, and grown.
"Now we have 45 staff in North Carolina with five field offices across the state," Bryson told ABC11. "As soon as we survey someone on the phones and enter that information on the iPad or on our laptops it automatically goes into our database."
The AFP app, which is similar to what left-leaning groups are using, allows a door-to-door attack that's personal. It's an attack Bryson says voters prefer over the mudslinging they have seen between Sen. Kay Hagan and House Speaker Thom Tillis.
"All the white noise is sort of a draw at this point. And if this election's going to be decided, it's going to be decided at the door," he said.
North Carolina's Americans for Prosperity has not explicitly endorsed a candidate for U.S. Senate, but their app has allowed the group to specifically tell people they've categorized as conservative to vote against Hagan.
