The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns

An energetic assessment of how a team of academics, statisticians and strategists are reshaping today's political campaigns explores war room strategies based in behavioral psychology and randomized experiments, offering insight into the campaigns currently being run such political figures as Barack Obama, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.
Presents an assessment of how a team of academics, statisticians, and strategists are reshaping today's political campaigns, exploring war room strategies based in behavioral psychology and randomized experiments.
NOW WITH A NEW AFTERWORD EXAMINING THE RESULTS OF THE 2012 ELECTIONRenegade thinkers are crashing the gates of venerable American institutions, replacing the so-called wise men with a radical new data-driven order. We’ve seen it in sports, and now Sasha Issenberg tells the hidden story of the analytical revolution upending the way political campaigns are run. The book follows the academics and maverick operatives reengineering a high-stakes industry previously run on little more than gut instinct and outdated assumptions. Armed with research from behavioral psychology and randomized experiments that treat voters as unwitting guinea pigs, the smartest campaigns now believe they know who you will vote for even before you do. Issenberg tracks these fascinating techniques and shows how our most important politicians are putting them to use with surprising skill and alacrity. Provocative, clear-eyed, and skillfully reported, The Victory Lab offers insight into political marketing, human decision making, and the increasing power of analytics.