Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been credited with winning the president-elect the White House. "Unschooled in traditional campaigning, [Kushner] was able to look at the business of politics the way so many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have sized up other bloated industries," Forbes reports in a profile on the Trump team's unlikely hero.
But if you ask Kushner, there was no magic to it. Trump's win came down to just one thing: Data. But not just any data — the kind of data that understands that, for example, if you live in a certain neighborhood in Ohio and like The Walking Dead, you are also worried about immigration and want to hear Donald Trump talk about it:
Kushner's crew was able to tap into the Republican National Committee's data machine, and it hired targeting partners like Cambridge Analytica to map voter universes and identify which parts of the Trump platform mattered most: trade, immigration, or change. Tools like Deep Root drove the scaled-back TV ad spending by identifying shows popular with specific voter blocks in specific regions — say, NCIS for anti-ObamaCare voters or The Walking Dead for people worried about immigration. Kushner built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface.Soon the data operation dictated every campaign decision: travel, fundraising, advertising, rally locations — even the topics of the speeches. "He put all the different pieces together," [Trump campaign digital director Brad] Parscale says. "And what's funny is the outside world was so obsessed about this little piece or that, they didn't pick up that it was all being orchestrated so well." [Forbes]
Read more about how Kushner helped win Trump the election, and what his next move could be now that he's got a foot in the White House door, at Forbes.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The week's best photosIn Pictures A silver-painted boy, a raging flood, and more
-
Roblox, one of the world's most popular video games, has become a bastion of hate speechThe Explainer The platform has over 111 million daily users
-
Russian strike on Kyiv kills 23, hits EU officesSpeed Read The strike was the second-largest since Russia invaded in 2022
-
RFK Jr. names new CDC head as staff revoltSpeed Read Kennedy installed his deputy, Jim O'Neill, as acting CDC director
-
DC prosecutors lose bid to indict sandwich throwerSpeed Read Prosecutors sought to charge Sean Dunn with assaulting a federal officer
-
White House fires new CDC head amid agency exodusSpeed Read CDC Director Susan Monarez was ousted after butting heads with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccines
-
DOGE put Social Security data at risk, official saysSpeed Read DOGE workers made the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans vulnerable to identity theft
-
Court rejects Trump suit against Maryland US judgesSpeed Read Judge Thomas Cullen, a Trump appointee, said the executive branch had no authority to sue the judges
-
Trump expands National Guard role in policingSpeed Read The president wants the Guard to take on a larger role in domestic law enforcement
-
Trump says he's firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa CookSpeed Read The move is likely part of Trump's push to get the central bank to cut interest rates
-
Abrego released from jail, faces Uganda deportationSpeed Read The wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego García is expected to be detained at an ICE check-in and deported to Uganda
