Campaigns
The Old Way of Campaigning Won’t Cut It Anymore
New York Times
“Candidates and incumbents should center each day on content creation...It means several hours a day filming in campaign offices — even candidates’ homes — offering a message that buttresses the argument they are trying to land.”
As Republicans embrace AI in campaigning, Democrats bet on a backlash
Semafor
“There is too much social risk on the left in becoming the kind of campaign that uses AI imagery; ‘slop’ causes a backlash among progressives, but not among conservatives. Democrats also run the risk of hypocrisy. If a candidate said anything skeptical about AI’s threat to workers or the proliferation of data centers, there’s a genuine downside to using AI tools to clean up a photo.”
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Data
This Is What Will Ruin Public Opinion Polling for Good
New York Times
“Using simulations of human opinions in place of the real thing will only worsen our broken information ecosystem, and sow distrust. We should not turn to an artificial society to try to understand our real one.”
Social Media
What Is the Effect of Political Influencers on TikTok? Early Results From a Field Experiment With Young Adults
Political Studies Review
“Using survey data and video content analysis, we found that consuming political content on TikTok increased negative emotional affect but had seemingly no effect on political attitudes.“
Social media is turning into a freak show
Nate Silver
“It’s not hard to notice that Twitter has become extremely right-leaning. But I’d argue there’s an equally important trend: the top accounts are of incredibly low quality. Elon, with the algorithmic boost he built in for himself, is at the eye of the storm, of course. But 'Catturd' literally gets far more engagement than the New York Times, for instance.”
Do links hurt news publishers on Twitter? Our analysis suggests yes
Nieman Lab
“These charts make it pretty clear that links in tweets hurt engagement. The connection was so apparent in my analysis that a graph including all 18 publishers is almost unreadable.”
Technology
NGP VAN Rolls Out New AI Compliance Review Tool
Campaigns & Elections
“The feature, Disclosure Inspector, is intended to provide additional support to campaign treasurers and compliance professionals before finance reports are filed with the Federal Election Commission. The goal, according to NGP VAN’s General Manager Chelsea Peterson, is to free campaigns up from the often onerous process of reviewing paperwork.”
The Political Industry Is About To Die
Daniel Barkhuff
“AI will not simply assist this ecosystem. It will compress it. Entire verticals that once required teams of staffers and outside vendors can now be automated, synthesized, and delivered in minutes.”
White House
Trump’s Online Brawler Is Trying to Keep MAGA Cool
Politico
“The 29-year-old Bruesewitz has become a key conduit between the White House and sports stars, influencers and celebrities whom Trump advisers hope can help them reach audiences that do not consume traditional media. Before the 2024 election, Bruesewitz helped shift Trump’s digital strategy away from its earlier focus on Facebook’s older audiences and towards a more youthful emphasis on pop-culture-adjacent podcasts, meme culture and mobile-friendly vertical video.”
On Truth Social, Trump Supporters Fume About Iran War
New York Times
“The responses on Truth Social — numbering in the tens of thousands — offer a snapshot of a simmering criticism from the right that has intensified in recent weeks over Mr. Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran. While polling suggests that Republicans still broadly support the war, unease and anger are bubbling up on Mr. Trump’s own platform.”