Campaign Trend Podcast

Why Do Chatbots Love Ballotpedia?

When a voter asks a chatbot about a candidate, the answer often comes from Ballotpedia. Research from the Center for Campaign Innovation found it cited in about 30% of chatbot answers about candidates, and in 42% of Google Gemini’s. Eric sits down with Leslie Graves, founder and CEO of Ballotpedia, to find out why. Her answer is simple: structure, original content and plain text. They dig into why candidates should fill out Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection survey. A race’s page on Ballotpedia can draw page views equal to 20 to 30% of the people who vote in it. Leave gaps on your own website, and AI may fill them with a four-year-old Reddit thread about something you said at a town hall. Leslie’s advice: don’t game the algorithm. Write for people. Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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Do Voters Know They’re Using AI?

Just 4% of voters say they used an AI tool for election information in the past month. But 38% got it from a Google AI summary, and about half of them didn’t realize it was AI. Eric sits down with B.J. Martino, president and CEO of The Tarrance Group and part of the bipartisan research team behind the AAPC Foundation’s new national survey of likely voters on artificial intelligence. They dig into the partisan gap on whether AI will do more harm than good, why just 1% of voters call AI their most credible source of election information, and where voters draw the line on AI-generated content. B.J. also has advice for the final stretch: know what the AI summaries say about your campaign, and be ready to show your work when someone cries deepfake. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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Panic Responsibly: What Social Media Should Teach Us About AI

Did the internet let politics down, or did we? Eric sits down with his friend Katie Harbath, founder and CEO of Anchor Change and author of the new book Disrupting Politics: A Front Row Seat to the Collision of Technology and Democracy. Before spending a decade running global elections policy at Facebook, Katie built GOP.com, ran digital for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign and led digital at the NRSC, so she's watched this collision from both sides. Eric and Katie trace how real-time analytics pushed campaigns toward whatever got the most clicks, and why social media turned "villainous overnight" after the 2016 election. They also talk about the whiplash campaigns felt when the same tactics went from brilliant to sinister in just four years. Then they turn to AI, where the pendulum has swung the other way. Katie closes with two lessons from the book: good intentions are not safeguards, and panic responsibly. Get the book: Disrupting Politics Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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What If AI Worked for Voters?

Almost everything written about AI and elections this cycle is about what it will do to voters. Paul Allen thinks the bigger story is what it can do for them. This week, Eric sits down with Paul, co-founder of Ancestry.com and founder and CEO of SOAR and Citizen Portal, who is applying the lessons of turning a huge unread archive into something personal to the records almost no one reads: local government meetings, ordinances and regulations. They get into how Citizen Portal transcribes public meetings and links every AI-written story back to the tape; a "newspaper business in a box" meant to make one-person local newsrooms viable again; and why AI agents may be the only way clerks keep up with a flood of public records requests. Eric pushes on whether elected officials will welcome that kind of transparency or just find new places to hide — and Paul challenges the premise. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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Pulse Check: Where Campaigns and Tech Stand Heading Into the Midterms

This week, Eric Wilson is the guest. Right after Labor Day, Eric joined Prompt.io president Farz Sokhansanj on Prompt.io's Pulse Check webinar to take stock of where campaigns and technology stand heading into the midterms. They cover the four kinds of Americans campaigns are trying to reach, and why only about 9% of them are the ones actually talking about politics. Whether 2024 really was the "podcast election," and why podcasts haven't worked down the ballot. How AI is showing up in this cycle's ads, and why it should be spice, not the whole meal. The 42% of Republicans in toss-up races who don't have an issues page on their website, even as AI search leans on those pages. Why over-targeting leaves votes on the table. What voters actually mean when they ask for a candidate who's "authentic." And why vendors need to be building case studies right now. As Eric puts it: the winner isn't the person with the most views. It's the person with the most votes. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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Who's Actually Getting Benefits on Campaigns?

Eric is joined by Dustin Tropp, founder of Republican Jobs, to unpack the 2026 Political Careers Survey — 427 political professionals on pay, benefits, and whether they're sticking around. The headline finding: it's not the job that determines whether campaign work is a real career, it's the employer. Staff at a firm or committee report just 16% with zero benefits. Staff hired directly by a campaign? 64% with nothing. Same candidates, same work, wildly different security — and Dustin explains why campaigns can't fix it on their own. They also get into why senior campaign hires are taking two to three months to fill this cycle, why hiring is shifting from March to November, what happens once a staffer crosses the $125K mark, and why field organizers — the least automatable job in politics — are still among the worst paid. Plus: what the survey found on AI (42% say it's changed how they work, only 12% see it as a threat), and why employers aren't paying for the extra output they're getting from it yet. Dustin also shares real-time hiring data most surveys miss: 107 open roles, where the shortages are worst, and what he's telling clients about paying below-market rates. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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Can You Trust a Poll No Human Ever Took?

Can you trust a poll when no human ever picked up the phone? Eric sits down with Matthew Hanauer, co-founder of Civly, to unpack synthetic polling — building AI simulations of real, individually-modeled voters (using public voter file, demographic, and donation data) to predict how they'd respond to a survey. Matt walks through how Civly back-tests its models against real election results, why asking AI yes/no questions produces unrealistically extreme answers, why piling on more data (like social media) can actually make predictions worse, and how turnout modeling benefits from more than just "did they vote last time." Eric and Matt land on where AI polling actually fits into a campaign's toolkit in 2026: filling the gap for downballot races that could never afford a traditional poll, and pressure-testing messages before committing budget to the real thing. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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Vetting Candidates in the AI Era with John Artunkal (Argus AI)

Opposition research has always rewarded whoever digs deepest. AI is changing who can afford to dig — and how much stays buried. This week, Eric Wilson sits down with John Artunkal, founder and CEO of Argus AI, who came to politics through open-source intelligence, trained by Bellingcat and schooled at Oxford in the social science of the internet. They get into how AI is — and isn't — transforming the vetting business: digital footprint mapping, facial recognition, and linguistic forensics; why self-vetting is now table stakes for down-ballot candidates; and the trade-off every research tool has to make between flagging too much and missing the one thing that ends a campaign. John also makes the case that candidates shouldn't over-sanitize themselves. Voters reward authenticity — the job is knowing the difference between a rough edge and a career-ender. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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Let Robots Do Robot Things

Everyone's worried about AI deepfakes in politics. Becki Wright says that's not the real story. Becki, founder of Proximity and a former candidate and campaign manager, joins Eric Wilson to talk about what AI is actually doing in campaigns right now — mostly quiet, mostly mundane, and mostly happening on downballot races that can't afford a full-time staff. She breaks down the three failure modes of off-the-shelf AI tools (the sycophancy problem, the averaging effect, and hallucination), why voters are growing more suspicious of anything that smells AI-generated, and why the campaigns that get burned by AI are usually the ones that let it replace judgment instead of amplifying it. Her bottom line: let AI handle scale and speed. Keep the human in the loop for everything else. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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The Digital Twin Dilemma: Why AI Can't Replace Real Voters — Yet

Every pollster knows the problem: for every hundred voters you ask to take a poll, only one or two actually respond. So what if AI could just answer the questions for them? It's a seductive idea — and Ben Leff has put it to the test. Ben is co-founder and CEO of Verasight, a survey research firm founded by academics and trusted by leading institutions and media organizations. He and his colleagues G. Elliott Morris and Peter Enns recently published a series of papers asking the question the industry is buzzing about: can AI digital twins replace human survey respondents? Their verdict, after rigorous real-world testing, is a firm — for now. In this conversation with host Eric Wilson, Ben breaks down exactly what synthetic sampling is, how Verasight built and stress-tested it, and where it consistently fell apart. Ben sees a narrow lane where synthetic data could earn a legitimate spot in the toolkit — as a directional pre-screen, a quick and cheap starting point before committing to a full sample. But for anything requiring precision in close races, the humans still have to show up. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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The Disclaimer Effect: What the Data Actually Says About AI and Voter Trust

AI adoption in political consulting is accelerating — but is the industry keeping up, or splitting in two? Eric Wilson sits down with Julie Sweet, Director of Advocacy and Industry Relations at the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC), to dig into the findings of AAPC's March 2026 member survey on AI use across the profession. They unpack what real integration looks like versus chatbot-level tinkering, why larger firms are pulling ahead on agentic tools, and what that gap means for smaller consultancies heading into 2028. Then the conversation shifts to the AAPC Foundation's Disclaimer Effect Study — the first empirical research on how AI disclosures in political advertising actually affect voter trust. The results are striking: slapping an AI disclaimer on an ad, even a traditionally produced one, reliably tanks credibility. And the voters least familiar with the technology are the least helped by the disclaimers designed to protect them. With 30 states now operating under a patchwork of AI disclosure laws — and two already enjoined on First Amendment grounds — Sweet and Wilson make the case for data-backed policy over reactive regulation, and look ahead to a future where agentic systems aren't just assisting campaigns, they may be running parts of them. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

AI on the Ballot: What Rural Voters Really Fear

Adrianne Marsh, CEO of Altum Insight, came to rural Nebraska expecting to hear about the economy. What her team found instead stopped them cold: deep, values-rooted fear of artificial intelligence — not about jobs or data centers, but about trust, truth, and a way of life under threat. Adrianne joins Eric to break down the qualitative research behind that finding, what it means for Democratic strategy in 2026, and why the generational breakdown of AI skepticism defied every assumption — including her own. They also get into the nuts and bolts of how Altum Insight does its research, why traditional polling instruments miss the most important voter sentiments, and where campaigns should and shouldn't be leaning on AI heading into the midterms. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

The Science of Persuasion with Josh Bandoch

Winning arguments doesn't win elections. Persuasion does — and they're not the same thing. On this episode, Eric Wilson talks with Josh Bandoch, head of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute and author of How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion (Simon & Schuster), about what the neuroscience and psychology of persuasion actually tell us — and what most campaigns keep getting wrong. Bandoch walks through four cognitive realities that shape how voters receive political messages: we feel before we reason, we respond to vision over opposition, our moral foundations vary across the political spectrum, and story always beats data. The conversation gets practical fast — from why the "logic tsunami" approach keeps backfiring on policy advocates, to how candidates can deploy the "them first" mindset on the doors, in ads, and across every piece of campaign communication heading into 2026. Josh Bandoch is a former speechwriter for cabinet secretaries and a strategic communications consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton. How to Get What You Want is available now. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

Build, Don't Borrow: The New Audience Strategy in Politics

For decades, campaigns have won by borrowing — getting union endorsements, buying TV ads, riding the audiences others built. But a small and growing number of candidates are doing something fundamentally different: building their own audiences from scratch and keeping them well beyond election day. Doug Usher, a partner at Forbes Tate Partners and co-founder of the Analytics Program at Columbia University, joins Eric Wilson to unpack how this shift is changing not just how campaigns are run, but how power works once politicians are in office. From why moderates are at a structural disadvantage in an algorithm-driven world, to why Ted Cruz and Gavin Newsom are already playing the 2028 long game through podcasts and social media, this conversation reframes what it means to run for office in 2026 — and what it will take to win. https://www.prweek.com/article/1942874/building-vs-borrowing-zohran-mamdani-marjorie-taylor-greene-aftyn-behn-blazed-new-path Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

The CTV Debate: Who Should Own Your Campaign's Streaming Buy?

Connected TV spending is growing — but the real question in 2026 isn't whether campaigns should be buying CTV. It's who should be managing the buy. Eric Wilson sits down with Chauncey Southworth, CEO of CrossScreen Media, to untangle the debate between TV buyers and digital buyers over who owns the streaming buy. Chauncey breaks down where the CTV growth is actually coming from (hint: down-ballot races are surging), why siloed buying is costing campaigns real money, and what questions every campaign should be asking their vendors right now. They also dig into a striking stat from CrossScreen founder Michael Beach: linear TV viewers see over 13 minutes of ads per hour, while streaming viewers see fewer than 4. What does that mean for your creative strategy? And how should campaigns be thinking about the light viewers who are hardest to reach on any screen? From supply path optimization to message testing to GOTV strategy for low-propensity voters, this is a conversation that will sharpen how you think about every dollar in your video budget. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

Reaching the Disengaged: Midterm Voters & the Streaming Revolution

The 2026 midterms present a fundamentally different electoral landscape for Republicans. In this episode, pollster David Kanevsky breaks down exclusive post-election survey data from Virginia and New Jersey that reveals how campaigns are now dealing with two distinct electorates: highly engaged partisans who consume news across every platform, and politically disengaged voters who stream without ads and intentionally avoid political content. The conversation reveals a media landscape where more voters now get their TV content through streaming than traditional broadcast or cable, where news has been "unbundled" from weather and sports, and where platforms like TikTok and LinkedIn now reach more voters than X/Twitter. With nearly half of votes being cast before Election Day and the most persuadable voters being the least engaged with traditional political media, campaigns must fundamentally rethink their approach. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

Inside Political Ad Spending for 2026 with John Link (AdImpact)

Host Eric Wilson sits down with John Link, Senior Vice President of Data at Ad Impact, to unpack the eye-popping numbers behind the 2025-2026 political cycle—projected to become the most expensive midterm in U.S. history at $10.8 billion. Link reveals that three to four Senate races alone could hit the unprecedented $500 million mark, with Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, and potentially Texas leading the way. The conversation explores why House races are seeing the largest spending increases despite fewer competitive districts, how connected TV is capturing growing market share as the only expanding media category, and why early money is flooding the system faster than ever before. Link also discusses the real-world impact of mid-decade redistricting in states like California and Texas, the messaging challenges in saturated battleground markets, and why campaigns must navigate an increasingly fragmented media landscape that now includes streaming, digital, podcasting, and social platforms. For political professionals looking to understand where the industry is headed, this episode offers essential insights into the spending dynamics shaping the 2026 cycle. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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All In on SMS: Prompt.io CEO Phil Gordon On The Stakes For 2026

What happens when a poker champion with $3 million in tournament winnings pivots to political texting? You get Phil Gordon, founder of Prompt.io, dropping wisdom on selective aggression, ethical influence, and why your campaign texts might be getting ignored. Whether you're managing a 50-50 race or just tired of your texts going straight to the spam folder, this episode is your permission to fold the bad hands and go all-in on what actually works. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

From Swifties to Socialists: How Fan Culture Is Remaking Political Campaigns

Wired senior writer Makena Kelly joins Eric Wilson to unpack how online fandom culture—the same energy that drives Swifties and K-Pop fans—is now fueling political movements. Through the lens of Zohran Mamdani's New York City mayoral campaign, Kelly reveals why young voters aren't just supporting candidates anymore—they're creating fan cams, remixing rally speeches into songs, and building participatory communities around policy issues. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

The Hidden Networks That Control Campaign Money with Jordan Lieberman

What if the political consulting industry isn't the competitive free market everyone assumes it is? Jordan Lieberman, CEO of Powers Interactive, analyzed over 54 million federal campaign transactions to reveal the hidden architecture of political consulting. In this episode, Jordan shares eye-opening findings about vendor survival rates, the power of alumni networks, and why 93% of consultants don't make it a decade in the business. We discuss how institutions like the Leadership Institute and party committees create lasting professional networks, why digital shops churn while printers endure, and what Jordan calls the "hollowing out of the middle class" in political consulting. Plus, Jordan offers counterintuitive career advice: why losing campaigns might actually lead to more success than winning them. If you want to understand how campaign money really flows and what it takes to build a lasting career in politics, this conversation is essential listening. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com