From Lincoln to AI: The Evolution of Influence in Washington
This was originally posted on Ron Bonjean’s Substack. Subscribe here to receive all of Ron’s thoughts directly to your inbox.
Influencing policymakers in Washington—and the voters who empower them—may appear to be a modern phenomenon, but its roots reach back to the earliest days of the Republic. Popular culture reminds us of this: in Lincoln, we see how President Lincoln’s advisers worked methodically to persuade undecided Members of Congress to support the emancipation of enslaved people. The pattern continues through history. The women’s suffrage movement deployed disciplined organizing and targeted pressure campaigns that ultimately secured the 19th Amendment. A century later, the bipartisan drive behind the 1986 Tax Reform Act succeeded only after a sustained, orchestrated effort to mobilize both public opinion and lawmakers across the aisle.
For generations, lobbying was a straightforward exercise: walk into a Member’s office, make your case, and hope that a well-argued brief or a well-timed coalition letter could shape the outcome. Outside the Capitol, voter persuasion relied on equally linear tactics—door-to-door canvassing, phone banking, direct mail, and broad-brush TV or radio ads designed to reach as many households as possible. Access and persuasion were predictable. Influence was interpersonal.
That era will remain timeless, but the practice has become far more sophisticated—expanding far beyond face-to-face persuasion into a multidimensional communications arena that blends data, technology, and narrative shaping.
What once revolved around pitching reporters, placing op-eds, and geotargeting a handful of digital ads has expanded into an intricate, multi-channel ecosystem. Public affairs campaigns now combine influencer outreach, real-time social listening, micro-segmented audience modeling, integrated video content, and advanced measurement frameworks that track how messages move through online and offline networks. The discipline has shifted from broadcasting to precision orchestration—ensuring the right narrative reaches the right stakeholders, allies, and constituencies in ways that resonate and compel action.
Today, the rise of social media and digital platforms has produced a far more complex—and far more advanced—advocacy environment. The volume of publicly available data on voters is staggering, allowing communication policy campaigns and issue advocates to micro-target messages with a level of precision unimaginable even a decade ago. What once required door-knocking or mass mailers can now be executed with a tailored, data-driven strategy that reaches exactly the right audience at exactly the right moment.
Equally transformative is the ability to map the full ecosystem around Members of Congress: not just staff, committee leadership, and lobbyists, but donors, local media, community influencers, ideological networks, and digital constituencies. Understanding the pressure points—political, geographical, demographic, and cultural—has become a strategic discipline of its own.
And the next frontier is arriving even faster. Artificial intelligence is beginning to integrate and optimize these data streams, offering the potential to forecast behavior, personalize outreach at scale, and simulate political scenarios before they unfold. Early adopters already see how AI can elevate insights, sharpen messaging, and accelerate decision-making. The question is no longer whether these tools will reshape advocacy but how quickly—and who will harness them most effectively.
Influence in Washington has always been part art, part science. The art endures. But the science is evolving at a pace that will redefine how policymakers, advocates, and the public interact. Those who understand this shift—and adapt to it—will set the terms of the debates that define the next generation.
