CBS reporting trump campaign chose RNC data, never even used cambridge data

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Cambridge Analytica, a data vendor for the Trump campaign, was phased out during the general election, CBS News reports. The firm is now at the center of reports that it exploited Facebook data and harvested millions of U.S. voter profiles without user authorization during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Trump campaign never used the psychographic data at the heart of a whistleblower who once worked to help acquire the data's reporting -- principally because it was relatively new and of suspect quality and value. The profiling approach utilized by Cambridge Analytica allowed it to predict the voting likelihoods of individual people based on personality, the firm claimed.

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In late September 2016, Cambridge and other data vendors were submitting bids to the Trump campaign. Then-candidate Trump's campaign used Cambridge Analytica during the primaries and in the summer because it was never certain the Republican National Committee would be a willing, cooperative partner. Cambridge Analytica instead was a hedge against the RNC, in case it wouldn't share its data.

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The Trump campaign had tested the RNC data, and it proved to be vastly more accurate than Cambridge Analytica's, and when it was clear the RNC would be a willing partner, Mr. Trump's campaign was able to rely solely on the RNC.

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