I grew up in a family deeply rooted in North Carolina Republican politics— my grandfather served in the state legislature and my mother has represented our district’s congressional representative my entire life. When I came out at 14, I found my calling in the Democratic Party, making me the odd one out in the family. This experience ignited my commitment to progressive policy, initially in immigration advocacy where I helped thousands of immigrants become naturalized U.S. citizens, and later as an investigator for the federal government. My passion for making a broader impact in the political realm led me to dive headfirst into data science. Today, I am dedicated to using these skills to promote progressive policies and strategic campaign decisions, leveraging my unique insights into rural conservative politics.
Take a look at some of my recent projects:
Winning in Trump Country
This project analyzes twitter messaging strategies from Democratic candidates who won difficult districts in the 2022 midterms. I used Non-Negative Matrix Factorization, NMF, and GloVe vector embeddings to uncover campaign strategies, such as Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez’s focus on volunteer mobilization, and Chris Deluzio’s strategy of tying his moderate opponenent to extreme figures. The insights from this analysis highlight tactical approaches that could influence election outcomes.
Party Support Model
Developed for the newly redistricted Congressional Districts following the 2020 Census, this model leverages the Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey data to predict Partisan Voter Index (PVI) scores with high accuracy for all US congressional districts. The accompanying Streamlit app visualizes key demographic influences on PVI scores and simulates electoral outcomes based on different turnout scenarios.
State Legislative Seats PVI
Employing demographic-based modeling, this project assesses the partisan leanings across state senate districts. Utilizing QGIS and GeoPandas, I mapped these leanings to visualize and predict electoral behaviors effectively.
Through these projects, I’ve honed my abilities to manipulate large datasets, develop predictive models, and present complex insights in accessible formats. My goal is to continue exploring how data science can be leveraged to enhance democratic engagement and inform better political decision-making to win elections.