Rauner Campaign Using Koch Brothers “Data Mine” In Re-Election Effort

Jake Lewis
IWT News
Published in
3 min readApr 19, 2017

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Left: the Koch Brothers (image via capoliticalreview.com) Right: Gov. Bruce Rauner (image via huffpost.com)

As Governor Bruce Rauner denies a campaign reboot, new campaign finance reports show the governor’s political operation has recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on voter data and analytics firms including i360, a company owned by billionaires Charles and David Koch, and Applecart, a firm that culls information about voters from church lists and high school yearbooks.

The filing, showing the Rauner campaign’s expenditures from January to March of 2017, show what looks to be a monthly fee of $750 paid to i360 for “software”. Previous filings show a total of more than $34,000 paid to i360 by the Rauner campaign since December of 2013. Rauner’s filing also showed a March payment of $338,092 to Applecart, a data mining and analytics firm based in New York. Rauner has paid Applecart more than $650,000 since taking office.

In a 2014 article, Politico described i360 as “the Koch data mine”, noting that after its launch, i360 merged with “a Koch-funded data nonprofit” and received investment from the Koch-affiliated Freedom Partners. A 2016 Time Magazine article called i360 founder Michael Palmer “the eyes and ears for the network led by industrial billionaires Charles and David Koch.”

This is not the first link between the governor and the Koch Brothers. Rauner attended a Koch Brothers “donor summit” in Palm Springs, California last January.

i360’s Database (via i360.com)

i360’s corporate website says the company “deliver[s] innovative products and services through the strategic use of data, software and analytics” and supports “free market candidates and causes.” The company aggregates and analyzes data from a variety of sources including voting history, consumer behavior, grassroots contacts, and census information. i360 is considered the “leading supplier of voter data and analytics on the right.”

Politico noted that i360’s funding by the Koch Brothers has allowed the organization to think in the long term, with Palmer saying in 2014, “Right now, we’re talking about and building things that you won’t see in 2016, because it’s not going to be ready until 2018.”

Applecart says its technology allows it to “aggregate and process publicly available online and off-line data to redefine how political organizations mobilize voters, nonprofit organizations fundraise, and advocacy groups lobby elected officials.” In total, the Rauner campaign has paid Project Applecart more than $650,000.

A 2015 Bloomberg article said that Applecart targeted voters using data from “yearbooks, church lists, sports rosters, and other sources nationwide.” The firm creates “social graphs” of voting areas — including whole states—to guide the efforts of political campaigns and persuade influential voters.

Though the Rauner campaign has not disclosed specifically what services i360 and Applecart are providing, it is clear that the governor’s campaign is putting significant attention — and resources — behind its advanced analytics operation. Rauner has significant cash on hand to put towards his analytics effort, having previously donated $50,000,000 to his own campaign.

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