When it’s better to use strategies that are normally worse — For the final installment in this series, I’d like to turn to an especially topical subject: how campaigns strategize at the very end of election seasons. In the last few weeks of an election, time and money are more scarce than ever, and each decision is…

How political parties can find — and exploit — breaking points in electoral systems — So far in this series, we’ve talked about a few essential concepts that political campaigns and politically-engaged citizens need to understand: the tradeoffs of persuasion vs. GOTV, how elasticity shapes swing states, and why undecided voters make polls a lot less reliable. But we still haven’t addressed the elephant in…

Or, why a 4-point lead could mean one of two very different things — In the first two entries in this series on campaign strategy, we’ve seen how politicians can more efficiently use the tools in their toolkit by understanding concepts like elasticity, expected margin impact, and the persuasion-GOTV matrix. We’ve also learned how everyday citizens can become smarter consumers of political news…

Or, why NC and NH are very different kinds of swing states — Welcome back to my series on the five essentials of strategy for political campaigns and the math, stats, and economics concepts behind them. My first piece was on categorizing voters and applying different vote-getting strategies to each using the persuasion-GOTV matrix. This time, we’re going to zoom out to answer…

A scientific approach to squeezing the most votes out of your electoral district — When you’re working on a political campaign — either seeking office yourself or working for someone you believe in — you’ll always be operating in a tough environment. There are always too many votes to get, too many babies to kiss and hands to shake, but never enough money…

Advice from a Google Associate Product Manager — “Why are manhole covers round?” Movies like “The Internship” will assure you that being able to answer questions like that — as well as hunting down fictitious professors and winning Quidditch matches — is your ticket to a job at Google. But these brainteaser questions are more fable than fact…

My firsthand tips to save money, stay safe, and have fun — For our last college spring break, my girlfriend and I decided to get out of the snowy Northeast and visit the famous resort town of Cancun, Mexico. While getting an all-inclusive resort and lying on the beach all day sounded relaxing, we wanted more adventure and authentic experiences (and food)…

A behind-the-scenes look at the Civic Digital Fellowship — I recently sat down with Marquis Cabrera, a tech entrepreneur and serial innovator who blogs for HuffPost, to chat about why Coding it Forward started the Civic Digital Fellowship and our thoughts on how we can play a role in modernizing the federal workforce. We’re beyond excited about this feature…