We cannot win future elections with campaign strategies from the past
Campaigns are fast-paced pop-up organizations that rely on a familiar playbook. Our current approach to campaigning: do what's always been done, hope for the best outcome, then repeat next cycle. We're fixing this.
Good research, unread and misapplied
What works for a schoolboard race does not translate to a Congressional. And misappropriating effects is causing an overreliance on the wrong tactics and a lot of wasted money.
Inflated effect sizes
The experimental literature skews heavily toward low-salience elections, where any contact moves voters more. The famous numbers are real and sometimes large. They just don't apply at that level to large competitive races.
Findings over-extrapolated
A canvassing result from a respected study gets touted everywhere, then becomes a line item in every campaign of every size. Nothing justifies that leap but the money gets raised and spent for it regardless.
Large Research Gaps
Tactic efficacy varies greatly by context. Yet many tactic-and-context combinations have not been studied. This leads to shaky inferences, educated guesses, and campaign strategies based on wishful thinking.
The evidence exists. But does it translate to your race
Decades of randomized campaign experiments tell us a lot about what moves voters. Progressive Labs has broken down every element to tell you what works, what doesn't, and when.
Our work
What we do
Build a measurement system
Create a multi-year, real-time framework to measure what actually drives voter turnout and candidate support.
Support local campaigns
Partner with state and local campaigns to provide funding and execution support to test promising approaches.
Identify new tools and tactics
Find, test, and foster new approaches that can influence electoral outcomes at every level of the ballot.
Build Better Campaigns
Integrate best practices into campaign tools so organizations of any size can run optimized operations.
The Tools
One engine, four paths to evidence
BUILT FOR THE INFRASTRUCTURE LAYER
For the people who decide before the cycle starts
We measure. We ingest all the available high-quality research. We test. We partner. We improve progressive campaigns.
Program Directors
For advocacy organizations allocating tactics for scores of races.
Funders
For progressive funders deciding how we will improve campaigns for cycles to come.
Committees & C4s
For those setting the defaults that hundreds of campaigns will inherent.
How we built this
Campaign advice is usually someone's opinion. Ours is built from decades of real experiments, checked line by line, and turned into tools that tell you what the evidence actually shows.
Access is reviewed, not sold
The tools are available to advocacy organizations, funders, and party committee staff. Tell us who you are and what you would use the tools for. We review every quest and respond within a day.