Digital Politics with Karen Jagoda

Ryan Davis , CEO of People First highlights how influencers and content creators have become an increasingly important component of a political campaign strategy. The value of an influencer's trusted voice is becoming even more relevant as voters are bombarded with AI-generated ads and content. Transparency and disclosure of paid influencer relationships strengthen credibility and are essential fo...

Joseph S. Harrington, CPU, an independent business researcher and writer specializing in property/casualty insurance, joins Deepak Puri , Founder of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the real costs of gun violence and who is most likely to use a gun for violence. Joseph explains that most gun deaths are suicides, and most shootings are intentional, which makes gun owners uninsurable. This leaves the...

Andrew Tavani , EVP Data at Aristotle, discusses the unprecedented volatility of mid-census redistricting and how Aristotle can quickly update voter files with new district lines, enabling campaigns to target voters accurately. Changes to the Voting Rights Act have resulted in a lack of ethnic data in voter files, adding to the challenge of targeting specific voter demographics. The emerging role...

Tom Joseph is the Treasurer of America's Main Street Party and is intent on counteracting gerrymandering. Tom describes a new system for nominating political candidates through a multi-round, app-based contest that operates separately from the traditional public primary system.  The goal is to produce more popular, centrist candidates by making them accountable to constituents rather than chosen b...

Andrea Miller,  Center for Common Ground, joins  Deepak Puri, CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the history and modern tactics of voter suppression and gerrymandering targeting southern Black voters in what has historically been called the Southern Black Belt. One strategy is to pack all Black voters into one district, and another is to crack the community into smaller pieces to diminish their...

Lauren Windsor, investigative journalist, partner in Democracy Partners, and the Executive Director of American Family Voices ,  joins  Deepak Puri , Founder of The Democracy Labs, to discuss state treasurers, particularly GOP members of the State Financial Officers Foundation, who wield significant power to influence state policies on climate change, diversity, LGBTQ+ rights, and access to women'...

Lauren Kunis, President and CEO of VoterRiders ,  joins Deepak Puri , Founder of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the wave of new and stricter voter ID laws sweeping the country. She shares her personal story and how VoteRiders has played an increasingly crucial role in building a more informed and active electorate. Lauren points out that a significant number of Americans lack proper identification...

Daniel Laurison is a Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College who focuses on class, social mobility, and racial inequality in US politics. He has recently released a report titled "The Political Disconnect: Working-Class and Low-Income People On What Politics Means to Them and How They Might be Mobilized." These citizens are not abstaining from voting because they are uninformed or apathetic....

Tom Carroll , Co-Founder and CEO of Convos, describes their AI-powered platform for political texting that facilitates, at scale, personalized, two-way conversations between campaigns and voters. This is a significant shift from traditional one-way broadcasting of political texts and ads and can lead to higher engagement and more meaningful actions. Creating a conversational text environment allow...

Howard Franklin , CEO of Ohio River South, joins me to shine light on the evolving political, economic, and demographic landscape of the American South. The question is how these shifts have changed the electorate and created opportunities for a new wave of political candidates. The most effective ways to reach Southern voters still include traditional in-person engagement alongside digital outrea...

Xena Ni , Co-Founder of the Trestle Collaborative joins Deepak Puri , Founder of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the world of civic technologists and the need to help progressive organizations and campaigns to use technology safely and effectively. She contrasts the resources and mandates of commercial tech with those of the political and non-profit sectors. The mission of Trestle is to provide res...

Josh Justice , CEO of Peerly, focuses on the evolving role of text messaging in political campaigns, particularly the shift from mobile optimization to a mobile-first communication strategy. The dominance of texting and reliance on small screens have driven the shift from simple SMS to text messaging with full HD and 4K video, and campaigns are thinking about content and advertising in new ways. U...

Adam Ditch Kurtz, a Democrat, is running for governor of Tennessee in a race with 4 candidates competing in the August Democratic primary. A career musician, Ditch is building a grassroots campaign informed by his live performance experience and long-term use of social media to communicate authentically and respond rapidly to voters. He outlines his strategies for reaching rural and working-class...

Tomas Garduno, organizer and activist, joins Deepak Puri , Founder of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the power of the working class and what tools are necessary to organize and mobilize this diverse cohort. After 25 years of political experience, Tomas has written the Fundamentals of Electoral Organizing to support this community and encourage more people to get involved. He points out that the el...

Stephen Schear, activist and billboard expert, joins  Deepak Puri , Founder of The Democracy Labs, to discuss a strategy to penetrate the right-wing propaganda machine by placing billboards with concise, visually powerful, and often negative messages in purple rural areas. Stephen details the logistics of creating, funding, and placing these kinds of billboards, emphasizing their cost-effectivenes...

Michael McNulty, Policy Director at Issue One, joins Deepak Puri , Founder of The Democracy Labs, to discuss fixing democracy through campaign finance reform, election protection, big tech accountability, and defending the constitutional powers of Congress from executive overreach. The SAVE Act and Save America Act are identified as partisan attempts to create significant barriers to voting based...

Chris Nolan , Founder of Spot-On, points out that political consultants often overlook local news sites in favor of national sites with large audiences and programmatic advertising capabilities. Local news sites offer highly effective geographic targeting and audiences engaged in current events and their communities. With shifting loyalties to political parties and a move towards issue-based decis...

Erin Miller , Founder of Cartoons for Democracy, joins Deepak Puri , Founder of The Democracy Labs, to discuss using postcards to enable people who can't canvass due to age, location, or time constraints to support campaigns. A political cartoon on one side of a postcard with a handwritten note is an eye-catching way to communicate a message quickly and humorously to a broad audience, and it is pr...

Caroline Sanchez-Avakian , Strategic Communications Director at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, BISC, offers advice to nonprofits on effectively managing their communications and earned media strategies. The media environment continues to change, requiring nonprofits to tell authentic, clear, and concise stories about complex topics that fit into a larger narrative. We talk about: The need...

Andrea Miller, Center for Common Ground, joins  Deepak Puri, CEO of The Democracy Labs, to highlight the strategy behind the effort to get out the vote in the Virginia special election, where voters will decide on a proposal to redraw the state's congressional district maps.  Deepak and Andrea talk about: Potential impact of the proposed Virginia congressional map Tactics to reach the 675,000 Blac...

Anne-christine d'Adesky, journalist and Founder of Resisting Project 2025 ,  joins  Deepak Puri, CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the financial and ideological motivations behind the Trump administration's policy to seize Venezuela and Greenland for oil and rare earth minerals. Deepak and Anne-christine talk about: How Project 2025 is the instructional guide for autocratic takeovers Who benef...

Patrice, a political commentator , joins  Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to talk about the need to write anonymously to be able to maintain his freedom of expression without jeopardizing his corporate career or putting his family at risk. His aims to show that modern political tactics are not new but part of a well-established historical pattern with predictable results. The use of first...

Lauren Windsor , political journalist and documentarian, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to talk about gonzo journalism and the need to report on a story with integrity and commitment to the truth. She draws a sharp distinction between her work and that of people who use deceptive tactics to appeal to less media-savvy audiences and create a false narrative.  Deepak and Lauren talk a...

Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, shines a light on how free and low-cost apps can simplify political intrigue and  complex social issues  and be used to educate and motivate.  Visualization tools for relationship mapping, accountability mapping, and crowdsourcing increase civic engagement, hold elected officials accountable, and counter disinformation and conspiracy theories. Deepak and I...

Pat LaMarche, broadcaster, journalist, advocate, and founder of the Homeless Remembrance Blanket project, joins  Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss poverty, hunger, and homelessness. Pat uses her journalism skills to address the root causes of mental health disorders, homelessness, and substance abuse, to inform and drive change in public policy. Deepak and Pat talk about: The sou...