The Kerry campaign used the Iowa data to good effect. John McCormally, communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party, says Kerry’s field workers used the state’s database, combined with public records on who gets veteran’s benefits, to identify 100,000 veterans and their spouses, whom they later contacted by going door-to-door, calling them on the phone or sending literature. Veterans gave Kerry critical support to win the Jan. 19 Iowa caucuses. "Four days before, Kerry was not ahead," notes McCormally. "Even the day beforehand it was close."

Republicans used IT to much the same advantage in 2002. Steve Ellis, director of network and online services for the Republican National Committee, says that the party’s then-newly deployed Voter Vault?a set of online data segmentation tools?provided "a marginal but critical increase in turnout and support" for Republicans that year. For the Democrats, detailed online voter data in 2002 helped Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano win the race for governor against former Rep. Matt Salmon. Moskowitz, who ran Napolitano’s field operation while working for FieldWorks, a political consultancy, used information from the DNC’s DataMart (what the Democrats call their national voter database) to build a model of Arizona voters and polled them to gauge their support for Napolitano as well as their views on key issues. Moskowitz found three groups who might be leaning toward a Democratic governor: elderly Republican men; married, independent women; and single, rural women. Based on voters’ answers to the poll questions, the campaign sent two different messages: The Republicans and independent women (who seemed concerned about leadership) heard about Napolitano’s ability to make tough budget decisions as attorney general, while the rural women (who cared about Napolitano’s personal values) were told her life story. Any time field workers collected new information about individual voters, they reported the updates to the Arizona Democratic Party, which used the data to refine its targets for its get-out-the-vote drive.

One analysis of previous voter turnout data revealed low participation rates in some neighborhoods of Tucson, traditionally a Democratic stronghold. So in the two weeks leading up to Election Day and on the day itself, the party sent more field workers door-to-door. Arizona Democratic Party chairman Jim Pederson says this strategy resulted in a 65 percent voter turnout in the Tucson area, compared to 56 percent statewide. A little more than half of the voters Arizona Democrats personally contacted (either in door-to-door visits or by phone) filled out a ballot.