Blue Rose Research is a Democratic Party-linked research and data firm that is a project of Open Labs, a for-profit research firm connected to Future Forward USA Action, a super PAC that was designated as the main super PAC supporting the re-election of President Joe Biden and later the election campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris following Biden’s withdrawal from the race. Open Labs and Blue Rose Research have received funding from Future Forward, while the founders of the PACs are employed by the firm. ^{1 2}

Background

Blue Rose Research is an arm of Open Labs LLC and is sometimes referred to as a “doing business as” name for the organization. The group is a data analysis project that aims to use computer models, artificial intelligence, and statistics to advise Democratic campaigns and organizations on how to target advertising spending. The group stated, “For the 2022 US election, we used engineering and statistics to advise major progressive organizations on directing hundreds of millions of dollars to the right ads and states” and “We tested thousands of ads and talking points in the 2022 election cycle and partnered with orgs across the space to ensure that the most effective messages were deployed from the state legislative level all the way up to Senate and Gubernatorial races and spanning the issue advocacy space as well.” The group claimed that in 2022 it was “more accurate than public polling in identifying which races were close across the Senate, House, and Gubernatorial maps.” ³

In 2024, the group stated it had over 40 software engineers, machine learning engineers, and “social scientists” on staff with the mission of making “high quality research and testing widely available for the progressive community.” The group uses artificial intelligence and Bayesian statistics to help organizations and campaigns decide where to spend political advertising money, which demographics to target, and what messages to craft. ¹

In July 2024, Open Labs polling showing that Biden trailed former President Donald Trump was leaked to the press, causing questions about Biden’s electability within Democratic Party circles and contributing to Biden’s ultimate withdrawal from the race. Open Labs was paid more than $1,000,000 for its services from the Democratic National Committee between 2022 and 2023. During the 2024 election cycle, Open Labs received at least $759,707 from Future Forward, and it was noted that the founders of Future Forward were employed by Open Labs. ^{4 2}

A New York Times profile described the founders of Future Forward, who also hold leadership roles at Blue Rose Research and Open Labs as a “close-knit network of Ph.D.s who have ascended in the party by displaying encyclopedic knowledge of randomized-controlled trials and political science literature.” ⁴

Message Testing

Blue Rose Research operates a testing library designed to measure the effectiveness of political talking points and ads in swaying voters to Democratic candidates and left-of-center causes. The group’s message testing library contains over 2,000 talking points across a wide range of issue areas and allows users to explore results across various subgroups like age, race, and ideology. The group restricts access to the library to “ensure our library stays within the progressive ecosystem.” ⁵

People

Data specialist David Shor works for OpenLabs and is the head of data science for Blue Rose Labs. He left Civis Analytics after arguing that violent protests after the death of George Floyd could hurt Democrats politically. Shor describes himself as a socialist and has been active in Democratic politics and organizations since working on Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. Since 2020, Schor’s work at Blue Rose Research has centered around building models to predict election results to aid Democratic campaigns. ⁶

1. “About.” Blue Rose Research. Accessed November 24, 2024. https://blueroseresearch.org/about/
2. Fang, Lee. “Kamala Harris SuperPAC Spent Lavishly on Firms Owned by PAC Leadership.” November 13, 2024. https://www.leefang.com/p/kamala-harris-superpac-spent-lavishly
3. “Blue Rose Research is hiring (yet again)!” Columbia University Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science. October 27, 2023. Accessed November 24, 2024. https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2023/10/27/blue-rose-research-is-hiring-yet-again/
4. Schleifer, Theodore, and Shane Goldmacher. “Inside the Secretive $700 Million Ad-Testing Factory for Kamala Harris.” The New York Times, October 17, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/us/elections/future-forward-kamala-harris-ads.html.
5. “Blue Rose Message Testing Library.” Arena. Accessed November 24, 2024. https://arena.run/tool/blue-rose-message-testing-library
6. Klein, Ezra. “David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want to Hear”. The New York Times. October 8, 2021. Accessed November 24, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/opinion/democrats-david-shor-education-polarization.html