Do psychographics win elections?

This article explores some of the research behind the contentious claim that a sophisticated suite of data analytics helped Donald Trump to win the 2016 US election.

Not only did Donald Trump, a man with no political experience, win the US presidential election, he did so with little traditional media spend, compared to his opponent. While there are many factors involved in winning an election, in this case one was the work of the then little-known Cambridge Analytica.

The company was hired to develop and deploy the big data side of Trump’s digital operation. David Wilkinson, the firm’s chief data scientist explained earlier this year that it was hired to put together “a program of research, data analytics and digital marketing”. Wilkinson also noted the importance of...

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