Closing the GOP's Election Data Deficit

[Commentary] In the 2012 presidential postmortems, Democrats claimed that an army of computer engineers, mathematicians and social scientists created a huge data advantage over Republicans that helped President Obama win re-election. There's truth in that.

Two aspects of this data gap stand out. The first is microtargeting. The Democrats' second big edge came from Team Obama integrating volunteers, donors and Web visitors into their voter file where they, too, were microtargeted. Can the GOP catch up? Understanding that today's technology has the shelf life of a banana, Silicon Valley Republicans are working to modernize the GOP's voter file in advance of next year's midterms. They know users want an interactive platform with applications so that any Republican candidate or conservative organization can better identify, persuade and turn out voters. Erasing the GOP's data deficit is no substitute for effective messages and strong candidates. But closing the gap will help Republicans deliver those messages better and put more members of their party in the winners' circle. That, in turn, will affect policy—and with it, the course of the nation.

[Rove, a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, helped organize the political action committee American Crossroads]