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Chris Wilson (pollster)

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Chris Wilson (born 1968) is an American Republican pollster and political strategist. He is the CEO of WPA Intelligence[1], a conservative research and data analytics firm based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Washington, DC.

He formerly served as Director of Research, Analytics, and Digital Strategy for Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in 2016.


Named a “Mover and Shaker” by Campaigns & Elections Magazine[2] in 1999, Wilson is known for his innovating techniques in data science and machine learning to campaign strategy. He has been involved in races at the local, state, and federal level as a pollster and strategist. Some of his most notable clients have included Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Utah Senator Mike Lee, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, North Dakota Governor Doug Burghum, North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer, as well as many others.


=Background=

Born in Lawton, Oklahoma Wilson earned a Bachelor of Letters at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma before attending the Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems through the Fund for American Studies which was located at Georgetown University in Washington, DC at the time.

Wilson’s first experiences in the political world came during his time at OU. While at OU he served as Chairman of College Republicans and started a Young Americans for Freedom chapter. During his junior year he attended the Leadership Institute, a nonpartisan, national educational foundation started by former Reagan administration official Morton Blackwell.  Blackwell identified Wilson as a political leader and asked him to work on the Marshall Coleman for Governor of Virginia campaign in 1989.  Wilson was assigned to Southwest Virginia, living in Blacksburg during the campaign, and was credited by the campaign for Coleman's victory in the area.  Based on the work on the Coleman campaign, Blackwell asked Wilson to serve as Executive Director of the the Conservative Leadership PAC.  In this role Wilson recruited, trained, and placed youth coordinators on 46 campaigns nationwide.[3]  Wilson worked directly with these coordinators and the campaigns to help them implement effective programs to recruit, register and turnout the GOP vote among college students.

Prior to starting WPA Intelligence in 2004, Wilson served as Global Director of Research for Weber Shandwick International, which was, at the time, the world’s largest public relations firm.

During his time at Weber Shandwick, Wilson gained experience working with Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola, American Airlines, Kodak, Wells Fargo, and Boeing.


=Political Career=

In late 1991, Wilson relocated to New Hampshire to run his first campaign, serving as National Youth Coordinator for former Nixon, Ford, and Reagan advisor Pat Buchanan’s race for president.

In 1992 and 1994, Wilson worked for Tom Cole’s polling firm, his first professional foray into survey research, and ran former U.S. Representative David McIntosh’s successful campaign in Indiana’s second district. Later, Wilson worked for now Vice President Mike Pence when he ran to succeed McIntosh.

In 1995, Wilson moved to Austin, Texas where he served as Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas- the youngest in the party’s history- at just 24 years old.  Wilson served as ED when former President George W. Bush was Governor of Texas, working directly with Bush strategist Karl Rove and replacing former ED Karen Hughes when she left the Party to join the campaign.  

In 1996, Wilson joined survey research and strategic consulting firm Fabrizio, McLaughlin, & Associates[4] where he did polling for his first presidential campaign in 1996 when he worked for Bob Dole in Washington, D.C.

In 1998, Wilson left Fabrizio, McLaughlin, & Associates and joined Shandwick, which later became Weber Shandwick, as Director of Research for the DC Office before being promoted to Director of Research for North America, and eventually Global Director of Research.


=Ted Cruz 2016 Presidential Campaign=

In 2014, Wilson was hired by Ted Cruz as a political strategist. After Cruz announced his candidacy for president on March 23, 2015, it was reported that Wilson would serve the campaign as Director of Research, Analytics, and Digital Strategy. In December 2015, U.S. News & World Report named Cruz's campaign "best of the 2016 campaign in 2015." As the Director of Research, Analytics and Digital Strategy, Wilson used a meticulous, technologically advanced and highly individual approach to reaching voters and predicting behavior based on ideology, personality and important issues. For this, he was widely recognized for playing a key role in Cruz’s triumph in Iowa and helping direct Cruz to finishing second in the GOP primary with the most delegates for a runner-up since Ronald Reagan in 1976.

The Cruz campaign aimed to "run the most data-driven campaign in the history of politics". The extensive data operation designed by Wilson can be seen in the John Stossel segment titled "Tech Revolution."[5]

In an interview with Houston's ABC13, Wilson stated, "That's the level of targeting that exists on every single person and every single republican primary voter in the united states and the way in which we will communicate with him or her. Targeting existed, even to a certain extent individual targeting existed. But I don't think the individual targeting the way that we're doing it has ever been done before."

Wilson's approach was also documented and studied in Sasha Issenberg’s Bloomberg longform article, “How Ted Cruz Engineered his Iowa Triumph”.[6]

The article lauds Wilson's use of issue testing on Facebook to identify the most important issues to Republican voters in Iowa ahead of the caucus, feeding them into survey calls that lead to microtargeting models. This was just one way Wilson's leadership allowed the campaign to focus on granular issues and an individualistic voter approach.[7]

"More than 300,000 Iowans were potential targets, having participated previously in at least one Republican primary... Based on that turnout, Wilson had set a vote goal of 39,585, a number he expected to reach by both persuading likely caucus-goers and mobilizing new ones predicted to support Cruz. When he took those different behavioral buckets, split them by issue preference, and then again by personality groups, Wilson ended up with more than 150 segments in Iowa alone," [6]

After identifying the segments, what made them different, and what made them alike, Wilson was able to guide the campaign's voter outreach across online ad platforms and direct mail.

Wilson used an approach to reaching voters and predicting behavior based on ideological segments, personality types and the issues important to them. According to Wilson, this individualized approach allowed the campaign to "communicate directly to the individual about the issues they care about, making the choosing of a candidate an easier process for the voter."[8]

An article written for The Economist, Ted Cruz’s campaign in Iowa identified 167 different categories of voters it wanted to target, based on their assumed political priorities and, apparently, their personalities. “It allows us to reconnect with an electorate that has become cynical about advertising because it’s become overly generic,” says Chris Wilson, who worked on Mr Cruz’s digital efforts.

Cruz conceded defeat in the presidential race after the Indiana primary.


=WPA Intelligence=

Wilson founded WPA Opinion Research in 1998.

The firm is nationally recognized by the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) with "Pollies" for Predictive Analytics and Adaptive Sampling techniques and their data-focused social media application, "Leonardo"[9]. WPA also received a "Reed Award" for building the most expansive, optimized field program on behalf of Abbott for Governor in 2018[10].

In 2019, WPA was awarded 3 other Reed Awards for Best Use of Data Analytics/ Machine Learning, Best Data Analytics Solution, and Best Use of Online Targeting for a Republican Gubernatorial Campaign.[11]


=2018 Election Cycle=

During the 2018 cycle, WPA provided data analytics for races at the state and federal level across the country. By utilizing new techniques and practices that identify persuadable voters and the messages that move them, WPA data propelled the reelection campaigns of Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott in Texas. As well as the competitive races of Brian Kemp in Georgia, Kevin Cramer in North Dakota, Kevin Stitt in Oklahoma, Ann Wagner (MO-02) in Missouri, and Martha McSally in Arizona, Adam Laxalt and Dean Heller in Nevada, Matt Rosendale in Montana, as well as others.

In 2018, several of WPA's clients saw came from behind to secure victories in competitive primaries and general races. Many of these successes have been attributed to the campaign's use of WPA data analytics. Brian Kemp, in Georgia, for example, won his primary runoff against challenger Casey Cagle by nearly 40-points, an unexpected turn that came after a close primary race.[12]

In one race, between Attorney General Steve Marshall and former Attorney General Troy King of Alabama, WPA polling was called “spot on” for correctly predicting the matchup between Marshall and King.[13]

During the cycle, WPA also provided data and strategic consultation to the Club for Growth, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Committee to Defend the President, as well as others. For the fifth consecutive cycle, WPAi clients outperformed the partisan average in both their primary and general election contests by double digits.

Today, Wilson continues his work in Washington, D.C. and splits his time in Oklahoma City. He serves on the Board of Trustees with the Fund for American Studies[14]. Wilson is a regular pundit and guest on Fox News[15], MSNBC[16], and has written for and contributed to a number of national publications including the Wall Street Journal[17].


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Chris Wilson (pollster)[edit]

Chris Wilson (Republican consultant)[edit]


This article "Chris Wilson (pollster)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Chris Wilson (pollster). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

  1. Manchester, Julia (2018-08-14). "GOP pollster: Trump dominates political rivals vying for media attention". TheHill. Retrieved 2019-02-25.
  2. "Campaign Insider | Campaigns & Elections". www.campaignsandelections.com. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  3. "Executive Q&A: Oklahoman heads polls, analysis and strategies for presidential hopeful". NewsOK.com. 2016-04-24. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
  4. "Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
  5. WPA Intelligence (2017-01-06), John Stossel Tech Revolution: Data Analytics in Politics, retrieved 2019-02-18
  6. 6.0 6.1 Issenberg, Sasha. "How Ted Cruz Engineered His Iowa Triumph". Bloomberg.
  7. Issenburg, Sasha. "How Ted Cruz Engineered His Iowa Triumph". Bloomberg.
  8. "Power Play: Cruz's big data push". Fox News. 2015-05-08. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
  9. "AAPC Winners Book" (PDF).
  10. "2018 Reed Award Winners". www.campaignsandelections.com. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  11. "The Magazine for People in Politics | Campaigns & Elections". www.campaignsandelections.com. Retrieved 2019-02-25.
  12. Blinder, Alan; Martin, Jonathan (2018-07-24). "Brian Kemp Wins Georgia G.O.P. Runoff for Governor to Face Stacey Abrams". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
  13. "Alabama Attorney General runoff: A case of good polling, and what's to come". Yellowhammer News. 2018-06-06. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
  14. "TFAS Alumni on the Campaign Trail: Chris Wilson". The Fund for American Studies. 2015-11-06. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  15. WPA Intelligence (2019-02-12), Wilson Talks Beto O'Rouke with Steve Doocy, retrieved 2019-02-18
  16. WPA Intelligence (2018-11-01), Wilson on MSNBC with Hallie Jackson, retrieved 2019-02-18
  17. Wilson, Chris (2018-04-10). "The GOP Needs a Free Facebook". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2019-02-18.