The Mobile Election: How smartphones will change the 2016 presidential race

The new mobile reality is changing the state of news and advertising, and it will also change the dynamic of American politics -- especially during the 2016 campaign season, journalists and political operatives said. On the consumption side, the rise in mobile will "change politics the same way it is changing American life broadly," said Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed. "People will organize and persuade on mobile devices and apps, the same way they live on them more broadly." On the media side, the rise in mobile usage will increase the number of citizen reporters, whose influence on recent political campaigns has been quite significant. Video footage of an errant remark -- from George Allen's "Macaca" moment in 2006 to Mitt Romney's "47 percent" moment in 2012 -- can have more influence on a political campaign than any traditional news report. At the most basic level, the rise in mobile usage will speed up the entire political process. Voters will have faster and more frequent access to campaign news and information, and campaigns will have better access to voters and their data.