When a voter asks a chatbot about a candidate, the answer often comes from Ballotpedia. Research from the Center for Campaign Innovation found it cited in about 30% of chatbot answers about candidates, and in 42% of Google Gemini’s. Eric sits down with Leslie Graves, founder and CEO of Ballotpedia, to find out why. Her answer is simple: structure, original content and plain text.

They dig into why candidates should fill out Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection survey. A race’s page on Ballotpedia can draw page views equal to 20 to 30% of the people who vote in it. Leave gaps on your own website, and AI may fill them with a four-year-old Reddit thread about something you said at a town hall. Leslie’s advice: don’t game the algorithm. Write for people.

Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org

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Just 4% of voters say they used an AI tool for election information in the past month. But 38% got it from a Google AI summary, and about half of them didn’t realize it was AI. Eric sits down with B.J. Martino, president and CEO of The Tarrance Group and part of the bipartisan research team behind the AAPC Foundation’s new national survey of likely voters on artificial intelligence.

They dig into the partisan gap on whether AI will do more harm than good, why just 1% of voters call AI their most credible source of election information, and where voters draw the line on AI-generated content. B.J. also has advice for the final stretch: know what the AI summaries say about your campaign, and be ready to show your work when someone cries deepfake.

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Did the internet let politics down, or did we? Eric sits down with his friend Katie Harbath, founder and CEO of Anchor Change and author of the new book Disrupting Politics: A Front Row Seat to the Collision of Technology and Democracy. Before spending a decade running global elections policy at Facebook, Katie built GOP.com, ran digital for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign and led digital at the NRSC, so she's watched this collision from both sides. Eric and Katie trace how real-time analytics pushed campaigns toward whatever got the most clicks, and why social media turned "villainous overnight" after the 2016 election. They also talk about the whiplash campaigns felt when the same tactics went from brilliant to sinister in just four years. Then they turn to AI, where the pendulum has swung the other way. Katie closes with two lessons from the book: good intentions are not safeguards, and panic responsibly.

Get the book: Disrupting Politics

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