Biden's new data trove boosts Dems for 2024

Zoom in: The database, run by an independent firm called Democratic Data Exchange (DDx), allows Democrats and allied groups — campaigns, state parties, super PACs and hundreds more — to bridge a longtime inability to share information.

• An early version of the system was launched just weeks before the 2020 election, but 2024 will be the first presidential contest in which Democrats' efforts to close a decade-long data gap with Republicans will truly be tested.
• It aims to give Biden's campaign and those of other Democrats an unprecedented level of detail about voters they're trying to attract, using publicly available information from voting files and masses of data that Democratic-leaning groups collect.
• That information can go beyond whether a voter was responsive to particular candidates or policies — and include details, for example, on whether the voter has been hostile to previous outreach and whether he or she speaks English.

The big picture: Democrats involved with the program say the database is a response to Republicans' Data Trust, an independent information warehouse that shares data and information with conservative groups under an agreement with the Republican National Committee.

• Republicans created Data Trust after Democrats dominated the data battlefield by pinpointing 15 million swing voters who were vital to President Obama's re-election in 2012.
• GOP strategist Karl Rove says Data Trust — which now includes information on more than 200 million voters — was a response to the "campaign data arms race."

How it works: DDx doesn't hold any information that identifies voters by name, Democratic officials say.

• Instead, it uses a numbering system that's attached to names in public voting files and organizations' databases that typically include people's names, addresses, phone numbers and preferences.
• Democratic campaigns and allied groups such as House Majority PAC and Everytown for Gun Safety pay a membership fee to join the exchange and earn credits by contributing data.
• They can then take out as much data as their credits allow. The more data they contribute, the more they can harvest.

• Campaigns and organizations receive data associated with ID numbers that they can then match with individuals with the same ID numbers in voter files.

What they're saying: Becca Siegel, a senior adviser who led the Biden campaign's analytics team in 2020, said access to DDx data allows the campaign to be more efficient with their resources — zeroing in on voters who seem persuadable voters and spending less energy on those who don't.

• "When we're talking about billions of dollars of voter outreach, a little more efficient is very meaningful ... and may be the difference between winning and losing an election," she said.
• DDx CEO Emily Norman said the database gives Democrats a map of outreach efforts by the entire ecosystem of Democratic groups — particularly in swing states — so that campaigns can refine their outreach.
• "We think there are a lot of voters on the table," Siegal said, "including voters who perhaps have not always been on the table for presidential campaigns in the past and maybe weren't on the table in 2020."
• "As [DDx] scales their operation, their infrastructure will be one of the most important tools the campaign will have to reach voters in today's diverse and fragmented media environment," Biden advisor Jen O'Malley Dillon said in her personal capacity.

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