Campaign Trend Podcast

The Campaign Trend Podcast brings you into conversation with professionals who drive the business of Politics. Hosted by Eric Wilson, Executive Director of the Center for Campaign Innovation. Visit CampaignTrend.com/podcast for more.

Campaign Trend Podcast is a news podcast hosted by Eric Wilson, with 170 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Eric Wilson hosts Campaign Trend Podcast, a news show with 170 episodes published.

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  Episode #9

  Let Robots Do Robot Things

  Jul 15, 202626 minS4

  Everyone's worried about AI deepfakes in politics. Becki Wright says that's not the real story. Becki, founder of Proximity and a former candidate and campaign manager, joins Eric Wilson to talk about what AI is actually doing in campaigns right now — mostly quiet, mostly mundane, and mostly happening on downballot races that can't afford a full-time staff. She breaks down the three failure modes of off-the-shelf AI tools (the sycophancy problem, the averaging effect, and hallucination), why voters are growing more suspicious of anything that smells AI-generated, and why the campaigns that get burned by AI are usually the ones that let it replace judgment instead of amplifying it. Her bottom line: let AI handle scale and speed. Keep the human in the loop for everything else. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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  Episode #8

  The Digital Twin Dilemma: Why AI Can't Replace Real Voters — Yet

  Jul 1, 202628 minS4

  Every pollster knows the problem: for every hundred voters you ask to take a poll, only one or two actually respond. So what if AI could just answer the questions for them? It's a seductive idea — and Ben Leff has put it to the test. Ben is co-founder and CEO of Verasight, a survey research firm founded by academics and trusted by leading institutions and media organizations. He and his colleagues G. Elliott Morris and Peter Enns recently published a series of papers asking the question the industry is buzzing about: can AI digital twins replace human survey respondents? Their verdict, after rigorous real-world testing, is a firm — for now. In this conversation with host Eric Wilson, Ben breaks down exactly what synthetic sampling is, how Verasight built and stress-tested it, and where it consistently fell apart. Ben sees a narrow lane where synthetic data could earn a legitimate spot in the toolkit — as a directional pre-screen, a quick and cheap starting point before committing to a full sample. But for anything requiring precision in close races, the humans still have to show up. Visit our website: CampaignTrend.com

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  Episode #7

  The Disclaimer Effect: What the Data Actually Says About AI and Voter Trust

  May 13, 202627 minS4

  <p>AI adoption in political consulting is accelerating — but is the industry keeping up, or splitting in two? Eric Wilson sits down with Julie Sweet, Director of Advocacy and Industry Relations at the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC), to dig into the findings of AAPC's March 2026 member survey on AI use across the profession. They unpack what real integration looks like versus chatbot-level tinkering, why larger firms are pulling ahead on agentic tools, and what that gap means for smaller consultancies heading into 2028.</p><p>Then the conversation shifts to the AAPC Foundation's Disclaimer Effect Study — the first empirical rese...

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  Episode #6

  AI on the Ballot: What Rural Voters Really Fear

  Apr 29, 202633 minS4

  <p>Adrianne Marsh, CEO of Altum Insight, came to rural Nebraska expecting to hear about the economy. What her team found instead stopped them cold: deep, values-rooted fear of artificial intelligence — not about jobs or data centers, but about trust, truth, and a way of life under threat. Adrianne joins Eric to break down the qualitative research behind that finding, what it means for Democratic strategy in 2026, and why the generational breakdown of AI skepticism defied every assumption — including her own.</p><p>They also get into the nuts and bolts of how Altum Insight does its research, why traditional poll...

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  Episode #5

  The Science of Persuasion with Josh Bandoch

  Apr 15, 202627 minS4

  <p>Winning arguments doesn't win elections. Persuasion does — and they're not the same thing. On this episode, Eric Wilson talks with Josh Bandoch, head of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute and author of How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion (Simon & Schuster), about what the neuroscience and psychology of persuasion actually tell us — and what most campaigns keep getting wrong.</p><p>Bandoch walks through four cognitive realities that shape how voters receive political messages: we feel before we reason, we respond to vision over opposition, our moral foundations vary across the political spect...

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