Marketing Research For Politics

The Republican National Committee's Voter Vault and the Democratic National Committee's Datamart contain about 168 million names.

Those who have seen them say the databases include hundreds of pieces of information about each listed person; 300, Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic national chairman, boasts. But some experts working with the lists say that much of the information is redundant or irrelevant to predicting political inclinations.

Think of the lists as 168 million layer cakes, each layer made from a variety of ingredients. The trick for the experts is to decide which layers are accurate, which have changed, which are politically relevant, which predictive of voting, and ultimately, how best to use the valid information to type voters as likely supporters of John Kerry or George W. Bush.

Emily's List is making an ambitious effort to make a science of politics. Using polling, focus-group interviews and statistical analysis, the organization is hoping to rate each of Datamart's 168 million names from certain Democratic voter to possibly Democratic, to never.

Last summer, consultants working for the group polled 3,827 people drawn randomly from Datamart about issues and attitudes. Based on the answers, statisticians created categories, from the most Democratic ("college-educated progressive") to the most Republican ("social conservative").

Categorizing those polled allowed the analysts to see which of the demographic, economic and political information in Datamart made someone a college-educated progressive or a social conservative or in between. Then they extrapolated, placing every one of the 168 million people into one of the nine categories. So far, more field testing has shown that the calculations were mostly, but not 100 percent, correct, Ms. White said. Emily's List will contact those it thinks are leaning Democratic, especially those who do not vote often.

Emily's List. Democratic National Committee