Member-only story
Tech’s Role in the 2020 Election
The successful candidate will need to use tech wisely in campaigning—and come up with a vision for its future
The first few months of 2016 were a little busy. In fact, they were more than busy — I was pretty much overwhelmed putting together Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, in the event he chose to run.
We didn’t just have to do all the blocking and tackling required of any campaign — getting on the ballot, making ads, polling, holding events, building a team, and so on. Being an Independent and working outside of the traditional political system meant we also had to run the whole thing differently than anyone had run a presidential campaign before. We knew that running a conventional campaign would have resulted in a conventional outcome: Defeat. No Independent has ever won the presidency. And we knew that Mike’s credibility as one of the country’s great innovators and entrepreneurs was one of our surest ways to differentiate him from everyone else.
Democrats can count on support — and bodies — from unions. Republicans can typically count on support — and bodies — from evangelicals. We weren’t going to have either. And we didn’t have an existing network of state and local party chapters to draw from. So we needed a supply of already-vetted independent…
