Demographics & Targeting

Every state has a unique demographic profile that determines who votes, how many of them show up, and how they weight the economic and social policy axes. Understanding this is how you turn "my Favorability is 70" into "my Favorability with Union & Trades voters in Pennsylvania is 58, and that's what's losing me the race."

This page covers the twelve voter archetypes, how they combine to produce state vote totals, and how to target them. For vote-accumulation math see Election Mechanics; for canvassing mechanics see Canvassing.

The Twelve Voter Archetypes

Each state's voter pool is composed of twelve archetypes with distinct policy leans:

Some groups (Retirees, Soccer Moms, Union & Trades, Rural Traditionalists) have ideology-modulated leans — they shift based on state ideology composition. A very conservative state pushes these groups further right; a progressive state pulls them left.

Reach × Appeal × Approval × Party Org

Every turn, for every candidate, the vote math computes per-archetype contributions using four multiplicative factors:

For each archetype the turn pool contribution is split among candidates proportional to appeal × reach × approval × partyOrg. Then the party strength modifier (1 + stateGovernmentApproval) × officeStrength scales the entire turn pool.

Appeal is quadratic

The key insight: Appeal is a quadratic function of policy distance. A 1-point distance loses you far less than a 4-point distance:

A centrist candidate (0, 0) has moderate distance from every group — appeal ~28 across the board. A far-left candidate (−5, −5) has 0 distance from College Liberals (appeal 50+) and 20 distance from Rural Traditionalists (appeal 0). Specialists beat generalists within their core base; generalists beat specialists across the full field.

Turnout System

Every archetype has a baseline turnout rate (e.g. Seniors 65+ vote at ~70%, Young 18–29 at ~38%). This rate can be modified up or down:

• Player canvassing action (see Canvassing) — cheap, home-state only, per-group, doubles in final 4 turns.
• Party GOTV passive spend — automatic based on party treasury allocation.
• Organic drift — modifiers decay 2% per turn toward zero.
• Cap — ±20 percentage points from baseline.

Turnout modifiers feed into archetype turnout through weighted Layer 1 composition. The canvassing action operates on Layer 1 categories (race, age, education, wealth, ideology) — these attributes are then weighted to compute each archetype's turnout. Young Renters are heavily composed of the young age group, so canvassing "Young (18–29)" raises Young Renters' turnout.

State Political Lean

Every state has a turnout-weighted average of all group leans:

State lean affects:

• Presidential vote allocation — lean-aligned candidates receive boosted appeal in presidential races via the per-state lean modifier.
• Primary party availability — some parties only field candidates in leaning states.
• Starting demographic profile — states have different archetype population shares.

Targeting Strategy

Know the field

• Commission a Full Demographic Poll at the start of every general election you plan to win. $75k, 6 actions. Breaks down your per-archetype vote share.
• Identify three categories: locks (Appeal > 35, Favorability > 65), contested (Appeal 20–35, Favorability 50–65), lost (Appeal < 20, Favorability < 50).
• Spend on contested; maintain on locks; ignore lost unless they're huge.

Play to strengths

• Higher appeal + higher turnout = more votes per action.
• A 1-point Favorability bump on a 15%-of-state archetype is worth more than a 5-point bump on a 2%-of-state archetype.
• Canvassing an archetype where you have Appeal 45 converts turnout directly to votes; canvassing one at Appeal 5 is near-worthless.

Shore up weaknesses

• Archetypes where you're at Appeal 20–30 are recoverable with ads. Target ads there, lift Favorability 5–10 pts, gain 2–4 effective appeal.
• Archetypes where you're at Appeal 5 are not recoverable mid-cycle. Skip them.

Use polls, not vibes

• A Quick Poll shows your best-5 and worst-5 groups. A Full Poll shows every group.
• Re-poll when strategy changes (e.g., after a canvassing burst or an opponent's ad spike).
• Track trend data across polls — are you gaining or losing ground in each archetype?

Canvassing vs Ads: What Does What

They attack different variables in the same vote formula. If your poll says you own Young Renters (Favorability 80, appeal 40) but turnout is only 38%, canvassing Young age group adds 5–10 points of turnout. If your poll says you're 50/50 with Union & Trades, ads lift Favorability directly.

State-Specific Profiles

No two states have identical archetype shares. A rural state might be 40% Rural Traditionalists and 30% Evangelicals; an urban coastal state might be 35% Secular Professionals and 15% College Liberals. Check the Full Poll output to see the actual composition — relying on intuition from other states will mislead you.

Multi-Country Notes

The twelve-archetype model is US-centric. UK, DE, and JP use equivalent archetypes localised to each country's real political landscape:

• UK: archetypes tuned to UK Labour/Conservative/SNP voter bases.
• DE: archetypes tuned to CDU/SPD/Greens/AfD bases.
• JP: archetypes tuned to LDP/CDP/Komeito/Ishin bases.

The math is identical; the specific archetype names and lean values differ. See each country hub.

Related

• Demographics — Full system, Layer 1 composition, turnout mechanics.
• Canvassing — Turnout-boosting action mechanics.
• Polling — Quick vs Full poll outputs.
• Election Mechanics — Full vote math.
• Fundraising & Ads — How to move Favorability.
• Formula Deep-Dive — Every formula with derivations.