ENCORE: Modeling Victory — Part 1

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

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