Mobile apps are becoming an increasingly important part of political...

at Facebook and former chief digital strategist for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It wasn’t just the [Federal Election Commission] finally allowing text donations, or people building mobile apps, which the campaigns did. … It’s just becoming the method of communication that people are using to get their information into interactive campaigns.” Barack Obama’s strategy evolved during his two successful campaigns for president, Harbath said. “The 2008 campaign was really about SMS and basic uses of SMS to communicate, to organize, to a certain extent,” she said. But, “2012 really introduced smartphones and mobile apps.” Obama also did a better job with data than did challenger Mitt Romney, she conceded. Obama officials “brought all their data into one database,” she said. “Very often all your data is siloed, your political data, your polling data, your fundraising data. Republicans don’t have a data problem. Republicans have a ton of data. Where we need to catch up is analyzing that data and acting off of that data.” Because of Twitter and other social media, campaigns find themselves very often playing catchup, said Chris Spence, chief technology officer at the National Democratic Institute. “It’s a very different communications strategy,” he said. “Conversations are happening in real time now and therefore the spin rooms are less effective, almost ineffective.” Rebecca Rosen, associate editor at The Atlantic, said the Obama campaign had a better mobile strategy than the Romney campaign. Obama officials “just tested everything very thoroughly and had much more success on election day with their apps and their database,” she said. “I think it’s easy to put way too much stock into what that translated into on the ground.”