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Terakeet, a Syracuse technology firm, leads a digital effort for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign in five key battleground states. Terakeet employees work in their Armory Square office in this 2012 file photo.

(David Lassman / The Post-Standard)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - When Hillary Clinton needed help with her digital campaign in the most hotly contested swing states in the 2016 presidential election, she didn't look to Silicon Valley.

Instead, the former New York senator turned to a Syracuse technology firm eager to test its own cutting-edge software that had never been used in a political campaign.

Clinton's campaign hired Terakeet, a digital technology firm based in Syracuse's Armory Square. CEO and co-founder Mac Cummings helped build the company from two employees to 200 in 15 years.

Along the way, Syracuse native and now Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe recruited Cummings in 2008 to serve as Clinton's director of online finance. Cummings energized what had been a lackluster fundraising campaign for her first presidential bid. He helped Clinton raise about $75 million online in six months.

Now eight years later, Cummings and 15 Terakeet employees in Syracuse have quietly worked on "Project Battleground," a digital effort to get out the vote for Clinton in five key swing states that could decide who wins Tuesday's presidential election.

Terakeet's secret weapon in the battle against Donald Trump has a simple name: Chorus.

It took Terakeet seven years and more than $10 million to develop Chorus, software that identifies and helps clients engage with amateur bloggers and social media users in the United States who have a big influence on any number of subjects, from cooking to fashion.

Terakeet's clients who have used the corporate version of the software include Chobani yogurt, Uber, Dollar Shave Club and Nest Labs, the "smart" home appliance maker that Google bought in 2014 for $3.2 billion.

Terakeet can use Chorus, for example, to identify any bloggers on the internet who publish recipes for Thanksgiving that suggest using yogurt as a substitute for mayonnaise.

Once identified, the software can find those bloggers who may also have a large following on a particular social network, such as Instagram. The company then engages those social-media "influencers" about its product.

Project Battleground

After the Clinton campaign approached Cummings and co-founder Patrick Danial in April, the Terakeet team came up with the idea of using Chorus as a political outreach tool.

"Now we are taking this practice that businesses are hiring us for, and we're applying it to politics," Cummings said. "Our idea was to introduce this for the first time to a political campaign, and to use our technology in the key states."

Terakeet developed "Project Battleground" initially to reach people who are long-form political bloggers who may also be active on Twitter.

After starting in the middle of Pennsylvania in August, the campaign has now expanded to Florida, Ohio, Nevada and North Carolina, Cummings said.

"We knew the electoral map would come down to a handful of states, and those states could come down to a handful of votes," Cummings said, adding that the project was never intended to reach a wide audience.

"We don't think this is going to result in hundreds of thousands of votes," Cummings said of the project. "It's really targeted around the undecided."

Terakeet Chief Executive Officer MacLaren "Mac" Cummings (left) and Terakeet Chief Technology Officer Patrick Danial (right) at their office in Syracuse's Armory Square.

Terakeet used its proprietary platform to break down key digital "influencers" online into five categories: pro-Hillary, Democratic, progressive/liberal, anti-Trump and exclusive Twitter users without blogs.

Once the potential Clinton supporters were identified, the campaign's digital directors in each state contacted the bloggers and offered to provide more information about the campaign's local activities in each state.

The idea was to help build awareness of the campaign in key counties, and to help with the get-out-the-vote strategy, Cummings said.

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for an interview about Terakeet's work.

Disclosure reports filed by the Clinton campaign show Terakeet was paid $10,000 for "technology services" in June, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Cummings said the firm ended up doing about $35,000 worth of work for the Clinton campaign.

Digital outreach

The strategy to reach the social influencers online has become a big industry as marketers increasingly look for new ways to reach potential customers online.

"This is like the middle-class of influence," Cummings said. "Our theory was that the same thing exists in politics. There are amateur bloggers who are posting on social media, but they have a large following."

So far, the firm has mostly anecdotal evidence of whether its digital campaign worked. The ultimate test will come on Tuesday.

The project had particular success reaching undecided and independent voters who are part of the anti-Trump crowd.

"They really liked and had great success with the anti-Trump crowd online," Cummings said. "A lot of those folks are certainly impassioned and fired up, but undecided who they are going to vote for."

Cummings, who also worked on the online fundraising side of Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, said he considers his latest assignment for Clinton among his most rewarding experiences.

"This election could come down to six voters in Miami-Dade County," he said. "And you have the ability to change history."

He added, "I do believe there is a chance our work will end up having an impact on the outcome. To be able to say you've been involved in four presidential campaigns, it's a pretty cool thing."

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