Campaign Text Messages: Annoying and Mysterious

When Jessica Affinito, a junior at Marquette University, gets notifications on her phone, it is usually texts from friends and family, Snapchats or her favorite influencer posting on X. But during the 2024 presidential election season, Affinito was flooded with nonstop political advertisements. 

“I received a lot of text messages, more than calls,” said Affinito. “Probably 25 different numbers texted me.” 

Affinito is one of millions of Americans who received political text messages but were left wondering, “How did the campaigns get my contact information?”

“There are several companies that you can hire that have bought the data [contact information] already,” said Christine Sinicki, chair of the Milwaukee County Democratic Party. “You pay them a base amount plus whatever number of phone calls.”

Wisconsin is one of the many states that allow anyone, including data brokers, to obtain voter data. Data brokers specialize in collecting personal data from public records, such as voting records. 

According to DataProt, a cybersecurity company, political data brokers collect voter records and sell them to campaigns, parties and academic researchers. 

Neither the Milwaukee County Democratic Party nor campaigns related to the county party have hired data brokers, according to Sinicki. 

Sinicki represents Wisconsin State Assembly District 20, which serves Cudahy, Saint Francis, Bayview and South Milwaukee residents. Sinicki has represented the district since 1999.

“The only one [company] I have ever worked with was Goodman campaigns,” said Sinicki.

Goodman Campaigns is a digital fundraiser that helps Democratic candidates raise money. The company works with candidates to send emails, text messages and direct donation advertisements to voters within the district. The messages that are sent to voters are personalized, making them harder to brush aside.

Although the messages included an option to opt out of future texts by replying “STOP,” it was not always that easy for voters.

“Sometimes I would reply,” said Roman Fritz, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “I was concerned that saying “STOP” would give me more messages because then they’ll know that the number is active and then send things from a different number.” 

According to Robokiller, a company that uses AI technology to block spam calls and text messages, 15 billion text messages were received by Americans during the 2022 midterm election season, a 158% increase from 2021, which outpaced the 384 million phone calls.

“Nobody answers the phone anymore,” said Sinicki. “Text messaging has become the most effective way of reaching voters besides going door to door.” 

Although text messages have become the most effective way to reach voters, the constant pressure to get voters to the polls has provoked mixed feelings about the texts.  

“I would say they were more annoying because I didn’t know where they were coming from,” Affinito said. “I already knew the information that they were putting in the texts. They just kept spamming me to register to vote. It’s like, if you have my number, it seems like you already know I am registered to vote in the first place.”