What campaigns know about voters

People running for office have far more information about the people whose support they’re trying to win than they did a decade ago, sometimes thousands of data points about an individual voter. It comes from sources as varied as voter-registration forms, warranty forms, subscriber lists, and conversations with canvassers knocking at the door or phone-bank callers ringing during dinner. We’ll get a tour of the data available about an individual citizen, understand where it comes from and how it ends up in campaign databases — and what use it is for a candidate to know if you’re a gun owner or regular cruise-goer or cast a ballot by mail in a 2010 Republican primary.

Guest: Bryan Whitaker, chief operating officer of NGP VAN and former Democratic National Committee technology director

Room: FDR