Commentary: The Diminishing Returns Of Big-Data Campaigning

What if we were all wrong about the Obama campaign’s vaunted technological advantage?

That’s what two Harvard researchers are suggesting. In a new head-to-head comparison of voter turnout in battleground states, what many believe gave President Obama an edge—his data-driven efforts at getting out the vote—might not have mattered much after all.

In fact, the researchers discovered, when it came to turning out his swing-state base, that GOP nominee Mitt Romney actually performed about as well as Obama did. The difference came down to little more than a percentage point. If those numbers are right, then either Obama’s ground game was less effective than everyone says, or Republicans aren’t quite at the disadvantage they think.

“You see a lot of talk in the media,” researcher Ryan Enos told me. “You know, ‘Obama has a vastly superior technological campaign’ and stuff. If it was vastly superior, it was 1.6 percentage points vastly superior.”