Hal Malchow, data-minded Democratic strategist, dies at 72
Hal Malchow Has One Last Message for Democrats
Hal Malchow enjoyed a long and successful career as one of America’s leading political consultants. Starting on his kitchen table in an efficiency apartment, he built the nation’s largest voter contact firm. He pioneered the use of advanced data analytics to revolutionize political targeting and control group experiments to measure and improve campaign tactics. His work in changing campaign politics is chronicled in Sasha Issenberg’s 2011 book, The Victory Lab, The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns.
Over his career, Hal has worked for five Democratic presidential nominees. In 2016, Hal was inducted into the American Association of Political Consultants Hall of Fame.
His new book, Reinventing Political Advertising, summarizes the surprisingly small effects of political ads. Drawing on extensive research it shows that we are targeting the wrong voters and that how we construct our political ads reflects almost none of the science of persuasion or tactics that have been measured and work.
Hal Malchow’s writing career began when his then eight-year-old son approached him about writing a book together. Two years later, they completed the first draft of The Sword of Darrow, a highly acclaimed young adult fantasy novel. In 2014, writing alone, he published a sequel, The Dragon and the Firefly. He followed that book in 2018 with a political thriller, No Popes in Heaven. His most recent book is his sixth.
Hal passed away on March 21, 2024. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he chose assisted suicide rather than live with this condition and saddle his family with his care.
Studies and control group experiments show that political ads have small effects and sometimes move no voters at all. Reinventing Political Advertising reviews measurement of the small impacts of political ads on television, the internet and in the mail.
42 Million to One is a political thriller about voting machine manipulation. Lucy Gilmore, a young reporter becomes convinced that our voting machines are being manipulated and election outcomes changed. She discovers how easy it is to hack a voting machine and how hard it is to get caught.
No Popes in Heaven is a political thriller that lies at the intersection of science and politics, providing biting commentary about what has gone wrong with the world’s ideal democracy. No Popes in Heaven gives a dark, satirical look on how the brilliant vision of our nation’s Founding Fathers has been corrupted and bent to the wills of a powerful few. Certain to enlighten and entertain.
