Robocall Universes

I have done robocalls. I have a good friend who is a phone vendor (live calls and robocalls). I’d be happy to recommend his firm to you.

But, their value is very narrow.

We all know that Scott Wagman and Jamie Bennett have done robocalls in the St. Pete mayoral race. Each of them was delivering a persuasion message, by which I mean, a message that seems intended to turn an undecided voter into a likely voter.

I am not a big fan of persuasion robocalls, to be frank, but let’s look at some universes that might make sense.

The election is sooner than you think and ability of voters to ask to receive absentee ballots for future elections during the last presidential election means that universe of people who will receive absentee ballots as gone through the roof. This makes it very expensive to contact them all.

Potentially, a robocall to a subset of absentee voters makes sense. For Wagman, this might include Democrats who are receiving an absentee ballot, but who traditionally only vote in Presidential elections. In other words, a group that might vote this year, but are less likely to vote than other people receiving absentee ballots and whose party affiliation matches Wagman’s. The campaign might decide it wants to make some effort to reach out to these voters, but doesn’t want to spend a lot of money on them, because they are still less likely to vote than many other universes.

Just my initial thoughts on this issue.