Digital Politics with Karen Jagoda

Andrea Miller, Center for Common Ground, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss tactics to encourage voters and volunteers in the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities, particularly in rural areas, to get involved in campaigns. With an emphasis on grassroots organizing, training for effective phone banking, and activities such as postcarding that can be done at home...

Varun Nikore, Executive Director of the AAPI Victory Alliance, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the voting habits of Asian American or Pacific Islander voters and how to increase turnout. With an eye on overcoming resistance in the AAPI population to voting, the Alliance offers various activities to encourage involvement in campaigns and excitement for voting. Deepak and V...

Greg Miller, Co-Founder, COO, and Chair of the OSET Institute, joins Deepak Puri, CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss using innovative technology to support election administration, including using AI to support call centers to address voters' questions.  OSET has also built an AI model to analyze the text of Project 2025 to connect the dots and cut through the coded language to identify potenti...

J ohn Fitzgerald is EVP, AD Sales, DAX US part of Global Media & Entertainment Lmt and associated companies, and an audio ad expert. Digital audio ads expand the universe of people who can hear a candidate's message thanks to the proliferation of devices that can be used for real-time and on-demand listening. Digital audio ads can also be produced quickly and tweaked to personalize messages for ta...

Mark Galvin , Co-Founder, President, and CEO of TALON, discusses the Transparency in Coverage rule in healthcare. This rule was added to the Affordable Care Act and requires commercial health plan sponsors to provide transparency in the costs of tests, procedures, and other medical services. D espite the sharp divide in Congress, t his rule received bipartisan support through several administratio...

Fadi Micaelian , CEO of SPARKDIT, is an AI strategist who brings insights into using generative AI to support political consultants and voters. These voters are weighing choices and making tradeoffs as they decide who to financially support and vote for. Using additional data points to predict voting behavior is increasingly essential as voters become more partisan and face pressure from friends a...

Daniel Scantlebury , Vice President of Data Science and AI at Resonate, is a seasoned observer of human behavior. He uses his insights to better understand and predict voting behavior. In this age of media bubbles, how voters consume news and form opinions creates even more challenges for campaigns to reach them. We talk about: Use of Predictive Resonate Elements to target specific voter segments...

Ryan Davis , Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of People First, brings voices from diverse and specialized communities to campaigns to promote candidates and causes. The role of individuals with social media followers and the skills to create content is increasingly relevant to political campaigns trying to reach targeted voters. Influencer marketing is filling the need to find the most trust...

Wendy Pickering Sullivan, Pickering Sullivan Investigations, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to pull back the curtain on the job of a private investigator. While a great deal of information is available online, PIs have access to proprietary sources, hard-to-find public records, and the right people to access the right resources. Deepak and Wendy talk about: White-collar crime and f...

Daniel Barvin, Founder of the End the Legacy Foundation , is also the VP of Operations and Patient Advocacy at Coya Therapeutics.  Coming from a family with a genetic predisposition to develop ALS, Daniel has brought together a community of activists who are intent on educating doctors and patients about early diagnosis and testing.  This organization is also raising awareness about the need for m...

Ray Kingman , CEO and Founder of Semcasting, emphasizes the need to use an issue-based approach to reach and motivate voters instead of using traditional voter segmentation to categorize those likely to vote. Rapid response to current events is a key opportunity for candidates and advocates to express their views on issues and provide accurate information in targeted digital campaigns.  Ray and I...

Janice Gay , Phonebank Manager at Center for Common Ground, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to address efforts at the local level to reach out to the BIPOC communities where voting is inconsistent. By including familiar faces in the outreach efforts of local Democracy Centers, residents are encouraged to vote, speak up, find resources, and contribute to bringing change to their comm...

Brian Hansbury, Co-Leader of Media and Democracy Project, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss guidelines for pro-democracy election coverage.  With an open letter to American media executives, publishers, and journalists, Brian and his team are intent on expecting more from media companies in their reporting of the 2024 election. The Project is asking national and local journ...

Seth David Radwell , author of American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation,  which won the International Book Award for Best General Nonfiction in 2023, characterizes the forces driving the schisms in our society. With a view of the past and an analysis of what supports a healthy democracy, part of the solution, he contends, is the election system needs struct...

Jess Ellis , Senior Specialist, Client Partnerships, Politics at VDX.tv, illuminates the CTV and OLV landscape for political and advocacy advertising. With the increasing shift to streaming and the use of apps to download and watch videos, targeted advertising opportunities are diverse and effective for reaching specific segments of voters. The length of the ads is also shrinking as voter attentio...

Anne-Christine, investigative journalist and human rights activist Stop the Coup 2025, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to address the anti-abortion war and threat to women's health from Project 2025, a 900-page Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise from the Heritage Foundation.  With references to the Comstock Act of 1843 and other state laws, this group is organizing cam...

Bryan Miller , President of Neptune Ops, discusses how browser companies are changing their policies regarding the use of cookies to locate specific individuals and the need for new campaign   strategies to find and persuade voters online. In the post-cookie world, political consultants must consider new identifiers based on other data, surgical contextual targeting, and geo-fencing. We talk about...

Patrice O'Neil , Founder of Not In Out Town, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss gathering communities together to support conversations that drive understanding about fighting hate and racism. Patrice reports that screening their film Repairing the World in local gatherings has become a catalyst for people to share their stories about being harmed by hate and actions that ca...

Melanie Lavelle , Founder of Benefit Kitchen, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the impact of welfare reform and the creation of an app and database to empower people to understand what benefits are available.  Benefit Kitchen is focused on working with people to overcome obstacles and gain insight into the eligibility rules for federal, state, and local benefits. Melanie h...

Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, Founders of Survivors Empowered, join  Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss their reaction and activism as a result of the murder of their daughter Jessi, killed in the Aurora Colorado theatre 2012 mass shooting.  Their organization is focused on regulating companies that sell ammunition and repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Deepak,...

Joe Fuld , Founder of The Campaign Workshop, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to consider how the role of political and advocacy campaign managers has changed over the last 20 years. The constants are the ongoing challenges for a campaign to refine the message, have the candidate or advocate's voice heard by the target audience, and find the pressure points to make the most short-ter...

Rhiannon Ruff , Co-Founder of the digital agency Lumino, is a Wikipedia expert and author of the book Wikipedia & Crisis Comms . Increasingly, for voters and the media, Wikipedia is the go-to source for campaign and candidate information, and the accuracy of the information is critical for the site's moderators. While there are ways to get content edited, one presidential candidate's approach is a...

Andra Watkins, The New York Times best-selling author and speaker, joins Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, to discuss the threat of Christian Nationalists to the future of our democracy. Indoctrinated as a child in Christian Nationalism, Andra understands the language of the calls to action in   Project 2025 and warns about the potential impact on families and communities in her Substack: H...

Deepak Puri , CEO of The Democracy Labs, shares his reaction and insights from participating in the recent commemoration of Bloody Sunday and his walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. As an activist, Deepak appreciates the importance of learning from history and the need to continue the fight for civil rights. We talk about: What motivated people to attend the 59th gathering to r...

Jim Margolis , Partner at GMMB, was a Senior Advisor to Barack Obama in both of his campaigns for the White House. Jim is one of the stars of the recent documentary The Bigger Hammer: Race for the White House A Look at the 2008 Obama-McCain Race for President. Taking on the challenge of introducing Barack Obama meant having a strategic plan to define a different kind of leader, telling his unique,...