Politics & Elections Blog: 2015

Win the Moments that Win Elections

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Elections are decided over time, in countless moments that invite campaigns to inform, inspire, and persuade voters. The more of those moments you win, the better your chances of winning on Election Day.

With digital media, campaigns have greater opportunity than ever to influence these voter moments. We get immediate, relevant answers about candidate’s stances from Google search. We can easily watch and share a candidate’s YouTube announcement video or debate clip. When we see the right message at the right moment - and on the right screen - we can be inspired to donate to a campaign. Though the Election is nearly a year away, opportunities to influence voters start now. In July - September of this year, there were 650M views of political content on YouTube.Today, we’re releasing a new website to help campaigns of all sizes — from mayoral to presidential — understand how to influence these voter moments.

The site features a campaign playbook for five stages of a political campaign: 1 - Establish: setting up your campaign presence online 2 - Build: growing your base through fundraising and email list building 3 - Persuade: reaching persuadable voters with a variety of digital assets 4 - Respond: reacting to current news or offline events 5 - Mobilize: getting your supporters to the polls during voting season

On the Establish page, campaigns can learn the top mobile design principles for campaign sites
Each piece of the playbook explains which digital tools campaigns can leverage. We showcase examples of past and present campaigns doing these strategies well. On the site, we also put together a Solutions guide that walks through Google tools campaigns can use, from video and search ads to Google Analytics and Google Consumer Surveys.

On the Solutions page, we break down all of Google’s tools for campaigns

We’re excited to see how campaigns and candidates will use digital tools in reaching potential voters. As campaigns innovate on digital in the next year, we plan to update this site with new research and examples, so stay tuned!

Posted by Coco Pannell, Google Politics & Elections Ads Team

Planning Election Day with Google in 4 Easy Steps

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Cross-posted from the Google Canada Blog

Here’s a timely phrase that’s on the mind of a lot of Canadians this year: how to vote?

This election day, Google has the answer to this important question and a whole lot more! From the ballot box to watching live results, here’s what you need to know to participate in your democracy on October 19th.

Step 1: Make sure you know how and where to vote—and who’s on your ballot!

For the first time ever in Canada, simple searches for [how do i vote], [register to vote] and [my election candidates] will confirm what you need to bring to the polls, and will show you who is running in your riding on Monday.

Step 2: Pledge to Vote

You’ve found all the information you need for Monday, but have you pledged to vote yet? Visit our interactive tool and make your pledge to vote today. And don’t forget to challenge your friends and remind them how important it is to head to the polls!

Go to CBCNews.ca/pledge and share why you are turning out to vote.

Step 3: Track the results

After the polls close on Monday, you can track all the real-time election results by searching [election results]. If you use Google Now, you’ll get updates on the winners straight from the app to your smartphone!

Step 4: Watch election night coverage

Tune in to the latest live news coverage from Canadian broadcasters at YouTube.com/elxn42.
Throughout the election, Canadians have turned to YouTube as a source of news, commentary and insight. We’ve tuned into YouTube to watch our leaders debate live, and for the latest election trending videos.

Starting at 5PM on October 19th, tune into the YouTube Canada Elections Hub at youtube.com/elxn42 for live election coverage from Canadians news organizations such as Global News, CBC, RadioCanada and Vice News.
All set Canada? Happy Voting!

Posted by: Kate Sokolov, Program Manager, Politics & Elections Google

Welcome to the 2016 Election Trend Tracker

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Welcome to Google's 2016 Trend Tracker! Brought to you by the Google News Lab, these weekly newsletters will uncover the latest trends and insights into the 2016 Election.

2016 Elections: Weekly Trends Tracker 6/10/2015 - 6/16/2015
***
2016 POTENTIAL CANDIDATES • Democrats: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee • Republicans: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, George Pataki, Donald Trump
***
KEY INSIGHTS THIS WEEK

Following recent reports on Marco Rubio’s finances, top questions on Marco Rubio were: “How many houses does Marco Rubio own?” and “What kind of boat does Marco Rubio have?”

Lindsey Graham was the only candidate where a question on his stance on gay marriage showed up: “Where does Lindsey Graham stand on gay marriage?”

With the third anniversary of President Obama’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) this week, the most searched topic related to the 2016 elections was immigration.

WHO WAS THE MOST SEARCHED DEMOCRAT FROM 6/10/2015 TO 6/16/2015?

Hillary Clinton

Bernie Sanders

Martin O’Malley

Lincoln Chafee

WHO WAS THE MOST SEARCHED REPUBLICAN FROM 6/10/2015 TO 6/16/2015?

Jeb Bush

Donald Trump

Marco Rubio

Lindsey Graham

Rand Paul

Chris Christie

Ben Carson

Scott Walker

Ted Cruz

Carly Fiorina

Rick Perry

Rick Santorum

Mike Huckabee

George Pataki

WHO WAS THE MOST SEARCHED CANDIDATE BY STATE FROM 6/10/2015 TO 6/16/2015?

WHAT ARE THE TOP QUESTIONS FOR EACH CANDIDATE FROM 6/10/2015 TO 6/16/2015?
Top Related Questions: Hillary Clinton

How old is Hillary Clinton?

Is Hillary Clinton a Democrat?

Will Hillary Clinton be elected?

What time is Hillary Clinton speaking?

How tall is Hillary Clinton?

What does Hillary Clinton plan to do as President?

Is Hillary Clinton running for office in 2016?

Who is running against Hillary Clinton?

Where did Hillary Clinton go to college?

Who is Hillary Clinton?

Understanding America's "Interested Bystander:" A Complicated Relationship with Civic Duty

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-06-03 at 11.34.45 AM.png

A note about the geographic focus of this research: Our work is grounded in the premise that it is important for people to engage better civically, wherever they live. However, given the resources available for this research, we opted to focus deeply on one country (the United States) instead of investigating many places more shallowly. In describing our process and methodology, we hope to encourage researchers in other places to complete similar studies of this topic for comparison.

Today, we are excited to share our full qualitative and quantitative findings.

View the full findings report here.
View the deck of key takeaways here.

Top insights

According to our research, almost half of the United States adult population could be considered “Interested Bystanders” – 48.9% of people are paying attention to issues around them, but not actively voicing their opinions or taking action on those issues.
There is a misalignment between how Interested Bystanders think they should engage civically, and the ways they actually engage. Interested Bystanders are not taking the political actions they say they value. On the flip side, they underrate what they are actually doing now as civic actors. While Interested Bystanders associate the political aspects of civic life with conflict, shame, and negative experiences, they are attracted to the aspects that are about community involvement and social relationships.
While Interested Bystanders say that power comes from having a voice, they are disinclined to share their own opinions. Additionally, many Interested Bystanders are uninterested in hearing the opinions of other people.
While many Interested Bystanders believe they have the most power at the local level — either because they have greater ability to influence others in their immediate circles, or because they feel proportionally more important in a smaller population — most participants reported voting only at the national level, indicating a tension between their voting choices and their own sense of efficacy.
When they do take civic action, Interested Bystanders do things that meet the public interest most often when it aligns with their self interest. They tell us that they are most often motivated by one of three reasons: 1) they have personal or professional experiences to bring to bear, 2) they have personal interests at stake, or 3) they wanted the satisfaction of an emotionally meaningful experience.
We encourage you to take a look at the full findings, which include a more expansive set of insights, some Bystander “archetypes” that drove internal product ideation, and the results of a quantitative survey that pioneered the use of discrete choice modeling to conduct a “market segmentation” of the civic spectrum.

Implications of the Research

If you are a civic technologist, there is lots of work to be done! We invite you to consider three implications of our research, in whatever pursuits you have undertaken to make American civic life more inclusive.

First, you don't have to design for activists or the apathetic. You can design for Interested Bystanders and still reach a huge market of people and have a huge impact. Neither professionals nor amateurs, Interested Bystanders represent a “moveable” segment of the civic spectrum and we at Google are paying attention to them now because they matter - there are a lot of them.
Think about how to reset your strategies for engagement through the lens of somebody who is an Interested Bystander. Perhaps that means new features to help potential users connect their professional skills to community needs; perhaps that means doing better discovery to uncover what interests at stake they are willing to fight for; perhaps that means revisioning the role of emotional meaning and purpose in your interactions with them.
Second, we should design civic interventions that flow from everyday Americans’ real motivations, not our own aspirations for them. There is a desire within the civic tech community to find new ways to use technology to bring about broad-scale public engagement. This is a useful energy, and it should be harnessed to help Interested Bystanders activate their actual motivations (self-interest aligned with public interest).
We should not continue to make products, design policies, and promote programs that assume some kind of a priori willingness to spend precious time or resources engaged in activities that do not have a clear personal benefit for the intended participants. There are many ways of connecting public needs with personal gains, and we should be more creative about making those links.
Relatedly, we should be thinking about how we can help people do the kinds of things they value. Building from a sense of personal efficacy, how can we help people recognize and mine the power they are already exercising? This means an honest reckoning with the role of human self-interest.
Third, voting is important, but we can explore in greater depth the civic fulfillment that comes from community and social activities. Elections remain an incredibly important lever of power for the average person, especially at the local level.
Interested Bystanders who report voting say they do it out of a sense of civic duty and obligation, but not because they have a clear sense of what impact it has. Many would argue that voting no longer fits the way we live, and Interested Bystanders are not ignorant to this fact. If the election season is the only time we try to engage Interested Bystanders, then they will never feel engaged, precisely for these reasons.
However, the electoral process that seems so hollow to them now might fill with meaning if there were a more direct connection to the community and social activities that give them purpose and satisfaction the other 11 months of the year. What would it look like to make this kind of engagement more seamless, and provide direct links back to relevant political topics of public decision-making? This is exciting, because it is an area where technology can really make a difference.

We look forward to hearing what the implications of this research might be for the work that you do. We know that it is going to take a broad coalition of people to realize the kind of inclusive, just, and participatory society we desire and we are glad to be able to contribute knowledge and information to that endeavor.

UPDATE: Watch the full research presentation here.

Posted by Kate Krontiris, John Webb, Chris Chapman, and Charlotte Krontiris
Google Civic Innovation Team

Learnings for the 2016 Campaigns

Friday, May 1, 2015

Content for a digital audience

In her reelection race for South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley and her agency IMGE, created and promoted a made-for-digital video called “Amanda’s Story,” which highlighted Governor Haley’s anti-bullying efforts. IMGE used TrueView ads to promote the video, targeting it to mothers with school-age children. Read More.

Similarly, in the various senatorial and congressional races where they were involved, the US Chamber of Commerce, with the help of the agency Revolution, ran TrueView ads to reach audiences that would be most persuaded by their video content. For Thom Tillis’s North Carolina Senate bid, the Chamber targeted users that were interested in NASCAR with a video of Richard Petty endorsing Tillis. Read More.

NextGen Climate Action Committee and Bully Pulpit Interactive used video ads to deliver the right message to the right audience, and they used custom surveys on YouTube to ensure that their message stuck. In key midterm statewide races, survey results confirmed that NextGen Climate's message resonated with the audience that viewed their ads. Read More.

Leveraging all of Google’s tools

To aid in Governor Dannel Malloy’s reelection campaign for Connecticut Governor, Connecticut Forward, an affiliate of the Democratic Governors Association, and Rising Tide Interactive efficiently used both YouTube reserve video ads and programmatic to easily pivot their video messaging to complement offline strategy. In expensive TV markets with heavy saturation, Connecticut Forward ran digital-specific video creative to reach audiences with a different message than what was airing on TV. Read More.

Throughout Scott Walker’s reelection race for Wisconsin Governor, his campaign followed the ROI. They adapted their search strategy once they noticed a high volume of out-of-state donations and to improve their targeting accuracy, they created mirror Google audience targeting profiles, based on their own psychographic profiles of Wisconsin voters. Read More.

From first squeal, Joni Ernst’s campaign and their agency Targeted Victory piggy-backed on the success of their video branding. They drove search traffic from Squeal-related keywords to campaign donation pages, and they created a remarketing list from users that interacted with the Squeal video on YouTube. Read More.

Now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s reelection bid for Kentucky Senate leveraged a combination of Google products, right up through Election Day. With the help of their agency Harris Media, McConnell’s campaign used custom mobile and desktop Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) units and magnified their GOTV efforts with a smart search and display strategy. Read More.

What 2016 holds
Posted by Lauren Benson and Coco Pannell, Google Politics & Elections Ads Marketing

The United Kingdom's 2015 General Election

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Make up your own mind
Ok Google, who’s on my ballot? For the first time ever in Europe, you can just ask Google to discover information about your local candidates—all you need is your postcode. Ask a question like “who is on the uk ballot” or say “uk election candidates” to find out who is standing for office in your area, and click to get more detailed information on that candidate.

YouTube—a dedicated hub

During the campaign, YouTube’s Spotlight channel has provided 24/7 coverage of the UK election, making it easier to discover breaking election news, political party broadcasts and live-streamed leaders’ debates all in one place.

Channel 4 News’ Jon Snow is anchoring the channel, publishing a new video every weekday at 8am to guide viewers through the key issues, the different parties and how the electoral process works. So be sure to check back regularly!

The channel will also feature your favourite YouTube stars as they get a chance to grill the party leaders.

Keep your finger on the pulse—find out who won
On Election Day, if you use Google Now, you’ll get regular updates about the results as the votes are counted. You can also use Voice Search to ask “who won the uk election” and an easy-to-read display will keep you informed on all the latest constituencies as they report.

So use Google to stay up to date, informed—and to make up your own mind!

Posted by Verity Harding, Public Policy Manager Google UK

Politics and Elections Blog

Win the Moments that Win Elections

Planning Election Day with Google in 4 Easy Steps

Welcome to the 2016 Election Trend Tracker

Understanding America's "Interested Bystander:" A Complicated Relationship with Civic Duty

Learnings for the 2016 Campaigns

The United Kingdom's 2015 General Election

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