Why you’re getting so many political texts, and how they’re giving candidates an advantage

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- In the months leading up to the April Colorado Springs election, text messages about mayoral hopefuls and city council candidates were pinging phones across the Pikes Peak Region.

KRDO took a closer look into where these political messages are coming from, why they're targeting who they're being sent to, and how voters' information is up for grabs.

Meet Daniel Cole, he's sent out numerous messages propping up candidates and bringing down others from his independent expenditure committees; 'Committees like Citizens for Protecting our Water,' 'Citizens for Responsible Leadership,' and Citizens for 'Colorado Springs Outdoors.'

"I'm a big believer in them," Cole told KRDO, about political text messages.

"As long as the text message that we're sending doesn't look spammy, I think people click through to see what it says," Cole adds.

Cole runs Cole Communications, which heads political committees. Outside donors dump money into his committees to help win an election. It can be a proposition or an elected official.

In the 2023 Colorado Springs municipal election, he worked to elect a handful of city council hopefuls and helped mayoral candidate Wayne Williams's campaign.

Cole sent about ten messages to voters for the 2023 Colorado Springs General Municipal Election, although he's sent none in the runoff. Each message urges voters to vote for the candidate he's backing, or in some cases, not vote for an opponent.

He sends messages from local leaders too. In the last cycle, he sent messages from outgoing Mayor John Suthers, and former City Councilors Richard Skorman and Jill Gaebler.

Cole said he views himself as a publisher. He explained that those messages are coming from the people they claim to be and that he works with the candidates or political figures to directly craft a message.

"We agree on how the text should read, and then I distribute it on my medium," Cole said.

Cole's team uses other mediums too. He'll send mailers or do television ads, and even make phone calls. But the texts work differently. The texts are cheaper, quicker, and better targeted.

They cost him somewhere between 6 and 12 cents per text, far cheaper than a printed mailer without relying on printing and the post office. He knows exactly who is going to see it, unlike on television.

"Traditional broadcast, you can't target," Cole explained. "If you want to go up on broadcast, you're paying to go on every single screen, wherever."

But how is he getting information on voters?

In short, companies sell people's data. 

When someone signs up for a membership at a local grocery store, for example, the company can track what's bought. Kroger, the owner of King Soopers, was one of the first companies to start selling customers' data. Just by signing up for a 'Sooper Card', the company has a customer's phone number, address, and shopping history. That information is then sold to someone who wants it.

"These databases are going to look at whether you spend more money on bacon or tofu and extrapolate from that if you are more conservative or liberal," Cole says.

Cole subscribes to the data program i360. There are multiple databases out there in both Democrat and Republican circles, buying up your information from places like social networking sites, Walmart, or King Soopers. 

Representatives from King Soopers and i360 did not return KRDO's request for comment. Walmart replied to KRDO's questions, sending along a privacy policy, without answering any direct questions.

"They extrapolate things from the data that they get to determine whether people are more conservative or liberal," Cole says.

Then, data companies like i360 take the information they've collected from everywhere they've bought data, and develop scores.

For i360, they create two scores. The first is an affinity score. It's scored 0-1, how likely a person is to vote liberal or conservative.

They also use a propensity score, how likely a person is to vote at all.

"If we think that Spencer drives a Ford rather than a Subaru, that's going to suggest that he's more conservative," Cole explains. "But if he subscribes to Mother Jones (magazine) rather than the (National Rifle Association) magazine, that suggests more liberal.

Companies like Cole's use that data along with voter records from the county clerk's office. Cole said he can pick up an entire city or county's voter files, address included, at the clerk's office for a small fee.

He pairs that information with the data from i360, helping him specifically target certain voters, maybe even trying to influence a swing voter.

"There are campaigns even this last cycle here in the Springs who are sending mailers with Democratic endorsements to Republican households," Cole says, noting that works in the inverse purpose.

Cole's research shows that the texts are effective, and he plans to continue using them.

"If I had to choose between never doing another text and never doing television again, that would be a tough call.

If you're wondering if you can get out of these texts, you can. The texts are legally required to include a disclaimer and unsubscribe option that you can reply with. Cole says he has no problem with that. He wants to reach voters who want his information. 

And as far as the legality of the texts, Cole claims the texts are legal because they aren't being mass sent.

Each text is sent individually each time, with someone clicking a send button as much as 10,000 times in some cases.