Bwog Staff attended a Political Analytics Event hosted by the School of Professional Studies.

This past November there were special elections in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and California. Across these states we saw Democrats dominate these elections, despite early polls forecasting a close election. On November 13, the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University hosted a panel featuring Jackie Burns, Bradley Honan, and Morris Katz. Burns is a New Jersey political operative and communications expert who helped Mikie Sherrill win the New Jersey gubernatorial election. Honan is the CEO and President of the Honan Strategy Group, which specializes in digital analytics. Katz is a political strategist, who served as the lead media strategist on Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. During the event, the panelists discussed the outcomes of these recent elections and analyzed the ads, strategies, and candidates’ strengths and weaknesses. 

One of the main focuses of the discussion was the overinterpretation of these elections. Most news outlets overinterpreted the Democratic body and predicted that it was too broken to unite on a candidate. This mistaken interpretation was especially prominent in New Jersey, as polls underestimated Sherrill. Burns emphasized the point that Democrats did not waste time in this election. In regards to the New York City election, Katz reiterated the importance of knocking on doors and reaching out to voters. In Mamdani’s campaign, the team took the primaries very seriously as they focused on young voters with the message of affordability in their everyday lives. 

Another point of discussion in this panel was the global reset that politics is ushering into elections. Burns pointed out that people want politicians who are willing to break the status quo. Honan specifically talked about the anger that is in the system—everyone is feeling a financial crunch, from the working class to the middle and upper middle classes. In this past election, Mamdani was able to succeed because he willingly named an enemy, which was vital in order to gain the voters’ trust. In addition to this, Katz helped Mamdani face false accusations that were made by other politicians, in order to make the campaign crystal clear with voters.

While the panel was a reflection of this past election season, the speakers also wanted to discuss the future of campaigning. One thought that the speakers discussed was how political campaigning in the future will be more focused on one-to-one marketing. Campaigning will be much more personalized, with artificial intelligence tools that can micro-target people according to demographic groups and issues they care about. In this past election season, Mamdani’s team altered a specific ad by sending out different versions. Depending on their demographic, individuals received a version of the ad in a Knicks, The Bachelor, or even Survivor theme. The Mamdani team also targeted different voters by changing the endorsements at the end of the ad depending on the audience’s likelihood to recognize the names of the endorsers. 

Events like these allow students to hear the opinions of experts that have worked with both local and high-profile politicians and bring the experience needed to help us better understand the election season. Outcomes in elections are often puzzling to understand, and it’s important to analyze as politics continues to evolve and change with the times.

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