Catalist is a for-profit corporation based in Washington, D.C., that operates a

voter database A voter database is a database containing information on voters for the purpose of assisting a political party or an individual politician, in their Get out the vote (GOTV) efforts and other areas of the campaign. In most countries, the election ...

and works for progressive causes.

History

Catalist was founded as Data Warehouse, LLC. Catalist's first CEO was Laura Quinn, a former economic policy advisor in the U.S. Senate and Deputy Chief of Staff for Vice President

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...

. In August 2016, Catalist analyzed records from 10

battleground states In American politics, the term swing state (also known as battleground state or purple state) refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to pres ...

through June and found a major influx of new voters, majority-white, were responsible for the record-breaking turnout in the Republican primaries. After the 2020 election, Catalist published an analysis of turnout and votes among various demographic groups that contributed to the Biden / Harris ticket's victory. During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, Catalist served as the principal repository of Democratic data, working with over 90 liberal groups including the

Service Employees International Union Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing almost 1.9 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States and Canada. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare (over half of members ...

, the Democratic National Committee, and the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign. Catalist has engaged in data mining on behalf of clients such as

Rock the Vote Rock the Vote is a non-profit progressive-aligned organization in the United States whose stated mission is "to engage and build the political power of young Americans." The organization was founded in 1990 by Virgin Records America Co-Chairman ...

and

EMILY's List EMILY's List is an American political action committee (PAC) that aims to help elect Democratic female candidates in favor of abortion rights to office. It was founded by Ellen Malcolm in 1985. The group's name is an acronym for "Early Money ...

. Catalist receives funding from the

Democracy Alliance The Democracy Alliance is a network of progressive donors who coordinate their political donations to groups that the Alliance has endorsed. It has been described by ''Politico'' as "the country's most powerful liberal donor club". Members of th ...

. In 2015, Catalist received $725,000 from the

National Education Association The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college stud ...

, a major teachers union. The company as of 2018 claims that it has data on 240 million unique individuals in the United States, to be used by "progressive" organizations. Laura Quinn remained chief executive officer. In June 2021, 30 workers for Catalist announced that a super majority of workers had signed union authorization cards to be represented by the

Communication Workers of America The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico). The union has 27 ...

through

CODE-CWA The Campaign to Organize Digital Employees or CODE-CWA is a project launched by the Communications Workers of America to unionize tech and video game workers in January 2020. It sprung out of conversations with Game Workers Unite (GWU) and empl ...

, and that Catalist had voluntarily recognized the workers' union. They did not unionize to improve working conditions, but because workers felt that since the company does work for the labor movement, its employees should be unionized.

References

2006 establishments in Washington, D.C. Companies based in Washington, D.C. Political campaign techniques Political campaign technology Progressive organizations in the United States Technology companies established in 2006 2008 United States presidential election {{politics-stub

History

See also

References