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Comment by Udik | Hacker News Reader

> 4 years of Trump is what got Biden elected

Trump got 63 million votes in 2016. He got 7 million more in 2020. In the end, what decided the election is 3 votes every 100. The result is clear-cut: one wins, the other loses. But in reality what decided the election is a really tiny difference. Small enough for ads (from all sides) to have an effect on it, and really too small to say that anything has actually changed in the country.

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More people voted..

Such an under appreciated fact. Without Cambridge Analytics Trump wouldn't have won in 2016, I'm glad a bunch of smart people decided to make a significant difference in this election and Trump didn't have a trump card this time.

I mean this genuinely - how do we know that CA impacted the election? How many votes were swung or non-voters converted?

I go back and forth. Sometimes I think this stuff must be super valuable because so much money gets spent in it. Then I work with medium businesses who have no clue how effective their spend is.

I mean this sincerely: what actual evidence is there that CA affected the 2016 election?

1. Advertisers wouldn't spend so much money if it didn't work

2. ...?

CA gave Trump an upgrade from a no clue operator to a very efficient marketing operation with hypertarget personalized ads. Trump ran/runs several paid conversion funnels on social media. He build a community of followers that he leverages as an army. He gamified the engagement with his community and monetizes their attention. Marketing innovation is like technology innovation, companies spend similar amount s on innovation but the ROI is very different.

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