
ENCORE: Modeling Victory — Part 1
From Politicology by Politicology
April 8, 2026 · 52 min · Season 2 · Episode 568
About this episode
Scott Tranter discusses the role of data science in political campaigns and the intricacies of polling and modeling.
In this two part series, Øptimus co-founder and Data Science Director for Decision Desk HQ Scott Tranter joins Ron Steslow to talk about data science, polling, and modeling To unlock more episodes, visit: https://politicology.com/plus (01:00) The role of a data scientist on a campaign (04:20) What message testing is and how it’s used (11:15) Understanding voters you need to persuade and voters you need to turn out (15:16) Explaining sampling (34:36) Polling vs modeling (37:15) Why pollsters choose the cohorts they do Follow Scott and Ron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stranter https://twitter.com/RonSteslow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
People in this episode
Host: Ron Steslow
Guest: Scott Tranter
Topics covered
- data science
- polling
- modeling
- campaign strategy
- voter persuasion
Keywords
- data science
- polling
- modeling
- voter persuasion
- sampling
- message testing
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Decision Desk HQ, Øptimus
More episodes of Politicology
- ENCORE: Worthy of Protection — Part 2 · June 10, 2026 · 57 min
- Oil & Infowar — The Weekly · June 6, 2026 · 1h 15m
- ENCORE: Worthy of Protection—Part 1 · June 4, 2026 · 53 min
- Supporting Ukrainian Units on the Front Lines · June 2, 2026 · 9 min
- The Weekly: Mailbag Edition · May 30, 2026 · 1h 5m
- ENCORE: Democracy Interventions with Prof. Robb Willer · May 27, 2026 · 1h 21m
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Politicology podcast page.