Can Zoose Elect the Next Governor?
The Real Power Behind the Numbers; Sherrill Closes Gap This Week
Long before ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Claude, or Propensity became household names, Zoose® filed for its very first U.S. patent: “Computer-Based Tools for Identifying and Connecting With Human Language Translators.” That patent was awarded last year, and it’s the backbone of the proprietary architecture we’ve since integrated with AI to bring you the insights featured in every issue.
Over the past six months, that same architecture — originally built to “hunt, ID, and connect” users with crowdsourced translators around the globe— has also enabled us to collect more voter behavior data than either the Sherrill or Ciattarelli campaigns. We know it’s working — because the data keeps proving itself right.
In a previous report, we showed how Koch Industries built its AI-driven persuasion network through i360. In a later issue, we hinted at Elon Musk’s algorithmic influence in the 2024 presidential election.
Can an AI driven algorithm really affect an outcome?
Well — back when Trump and Musk were besties, Elon’s pre-election posts supporting Trump were prioritized, boosted and widely circulated by the X algorithm, reaching 2 billion views — far beyond what any manual sharing could achieve. That’s like launching a SpaceX rocket all the way to Neptune.
You decide.
Now, it’s time to show you what Zoose can do — and the ethical guardrails we apply to every insight we publish.
Because those who control the data shape the narrative. And those who shape the narrative could potentially influence how New Jersey votes for its next governor.
For 25 weeks, our readers have followed us to the edge of political analysis — where cutting-edge AI meets real-world voter behavior, and where ethics, influence, and outcomes collide.
We’ve approached the 2025 New Jersey governor’s race with no partisan agenda, just a commitment to truth, transparency, and data. In that time, Zoose has amassed actionable insight— millions of data points tracked across turnout patterns, platform engagement, human sentiment and behavior. Now, we’re using that data to move past the punditry and ask the real question:
Can raw behavioral data — if tracked, modeled, and used at scale — decide who governs New Jersey?
🗳️ The Turnout Equation
Using six months of momentum mapping, social sentiment analysis, and regional field modeling — all grounded in actual voter file data — Zoose has built the clearest turnout model yet.
Let’s begin with some history:
🗳️ 2017 General Election: 2.14 million voters cast ballots — just 38.5% turnout.
🗳️ 2021 General Election: Turnout rose to 2.64 million (40.5%), boosted by early voting and a competitive race.
🗳️ 2025 Primary Election: Record-breaking — 1.3 million voters turned out, up nearly 70% from the 2017 primary.
With 6.58 million registered voters now on the rolls, Zoose projects general election turnout this November will fall between 2.9 and 3.3 million — about 45% to 50% participation.
👉 Target to win: approximately 1.5 million votes.
Here’s where those votes will need to come from:
🔴 The Republican Base
📊 Estimated turnout: 1.1M to 1.3M
New Jersey has ~1.63 million registered Republicans. In 2021, Ciattarelli earned 1.255 million votes and nearly flipped the state.
Since then, GOP voter rolls have grown by more than 180,000 — outpacing Democrats nearly 5 to 1 in net registration gains. While that doesn’t guarantee turnout, it signals fresh energy — and adds new fuel to the base.
In 2025, he’s stronger: Trump-endorsed, post-primary unified, better organized and better funded. Republican loyalty is sky-high. Expect 65% to 80% of GOP voters to show up — and nearly all to support him.
📌 That’s his solid floor. To win, he must build beyond it with independents.
🔵 The Democratic Base
📊 Estimated turnout: 1.3M to 1.5M
Democrats enjoy a massive registration advantage: 2.46 million to the GOP’s 1.63 million. But advantage isn’t destiny.
In 2021, Gov. Murphy won with 1.34 million votes — a soft benchmark.
Now, with Mikie Sherrill atop the ticket — the state’s first-ever female gubernatorial nominee — Democrats are betting on history and turnout.
Her path to 1.5 million likely includes at least 1.4 million base Democrats showing up — which includes support from her progressive wing — plus additional swing voters.
📌 Her risk isn’t defection — it’s disengagement.
🟨 The Persuadable Independents
📊 Projected turnout: 600k to 800k
New Jersey has 2.41 million unaffiliated voters. Most skip off-year elections — but in a high-profile, high-stakes race like this, we project 25% to 33% participation.
Within that, 200k to 300k are true persuadables — behaviorally undecided and responsive to message, messenger, and momentum.
📌 These are the swing voters Zoose models most closely. They’re not tied to party — but they do decide elections.
🔸 The Progressive Wildcard: Emotional vs. Pragmatic
📊 Estimated universe: 400k+ primary voters
In the Democratic primary, Baraka, Fulop, and Spiller collectively drew ~400,000 votes — nearly half the total turnout. But those voters aren’t guaranteed to return in November.
Zoose segments this group into two critical factions:
Pragmatic Progressives (~260k–300k): Outcome-driven voters who see Sherrill as the best bulwark against MAGA Republicans. Many are already aligning with her.
Emotional Progressives (~100k–140k): Younger, activist-leaning voters with high engagement but low institutional trust. Unless mobilized on their own terms, they may stay home.
📌 Sherrill can’t afford to lose more than 50,000 from this group — and stands to gain thousands if she connects.
📊 How to Reach 1.5 Million Votes
Ciattarelli’s path: 1.2M Republicans + 300k independents + reduced Dem turnout = narrow GOP win.
Sherrill’s path: 1.4M Democrats (with strong progressive retention) + 100k independents = narrow Dem win.
But raw turnout is just part of the equation. Voter motivation — and persuasion — will decide the outcome.
The Persuasion Engine
That brings us to the final variable:
Imagine 50,000 to 80,000 voters across New Jersey who — on their own — publicly posted on social media some variation of:
“I don’t know who I’m voting for.”
“Still undecided between Sherrill and Ciattarelli.”
“I voted for Baraka (or Fulop).”
“Both parties are corrupt.”
“Is it even worth voting?”
Now imagine tracking those voters day by day — across platforms — mapping what they click, like, and share.
That’s not theoretical. It’s being done.
While companies can’t legally track private behavior without consent, they can approximate behavioral journeys using public signals:
What content voters post
Who they follow or engage with
What videos they “like” or respond to with their own commentary
Which hashtags they repeat
What comments they leave
We track emotional spikes. Hesitations. Disengagement. Movement from “no clue” to “leaning.” Then we ask:
Can we nudge that lean — and if so, how far?
Traditional advertisers have done this for decades. Click-through rates. Conversion funnels. Retargeting. Think Google Ads. Amazon recommendations. The uncanny moment when Spotify, TikTok, or your Instagram feed knows you better than your friends.
But AI goes further.
Traditional ads react to past engagement. AI anticipates the next one. It detects emotional tone, predicts decision arcs, and tailors persuasion in real time — not based on who someone is, but how they feel. That’s the shift: from demographic targeting to emotional precision at scale.
Now imagine — purely hypothetically — a Ciattarelli-aligned PAC launching a TikTok campaign targeted at disillusioned Gen Z progressives.
The tactic isn’t to win their vote. It’s to suppress turnout through disillusionment.
Here’s how it would work:
They enlist a wave of Gen Z influencers — not political activists, but lifestyle creators. Each post is visually aspirational: sleek helicopters, Jersey City penthouses, luxury beach homes on LBI. But the captions flip the tone:
“What will Mikie buy with the $7 million she made off unethical stock trades?”
Then comes the pivot — a contrast between personal gain and public good.
Each influencer imagines a more altruistic use for that money: community health clinics, college tuition for underserved students, or clean water infrastructure in struggling cities. The tone is hopeful but sobering — showcasing what could be done with $7 million if it weren’t in the hands of a politician.
Then that message follows them taking on various forms:
On YouTube.
On Spotify.
On Amazon.
On DoorDash.
One personalized payload. A hundred platforms. A relentless persuasion loop.
AI has already matched the derailing message with a skeptical voter.
The goal isn’t to flip votes. It’s to instill doubt — to make the viewer feel like the system is broken, that no candidate is clean, and that voting may not be worth it at all.
Could the same strategy be used against Ciattarelli? Of course. The tools work both ways. And rest assured: you will see these tactics deployed — if you haven’t already.
📚 Does It Actually Work?
If this sounds theoretical, it isn’t. Both national parties have already deployed persuasion engines—quietly but effectively.
The Koch network’s i360 helped Republicans flip the Senate in 2014 by microtargeting voters using commercial and behavioral data. Democrats quickly matched that firepower. Obama’s 2012 campaign pioneered tools like “Narwhal” and “Optimizer,” and today, firms like Catalist, Civis Analytics, and NGP VAN provide deep modeling capabilities to progressive campaigns.
Even academic studies show these tactics can shift 1–4% of voters when executed at scale. In a race likely to be decided by a narrow margin, that’s not just meaningful — it’s potentially decisive.
So how many votes does the Persuasion Engine need to tip the election?
Based on Zoose’s turnout modeling:
Ciattarelli could reach 1.5M with 1.2M Republicans + 300k persuadables
Sherrill could get to 1.5M with 1.4M Democrats + 100k persuadables
That leaves a swing block of 200k–300k true persuadables, plus 100k–140k emotional progressives
👉 The true “persuadable pool” is ~300k–400k voters — and just 5% to 8% movement or 15,000–30,000 voters could tip the election either way.
Read all about the Koch Brother’s i360 (link above)—they wrote the Master Class on voter persuasion.
🧬 The Ethics of Influence
The AI arms race in American elections isn’t coming — it’s already here.
Republicans and Democrats alike have spent the past decade quietly building behavioral infrastructure to microtarget voters and shape turnout. At Zoose, we took a different path.
We built a multi-patented, ethics-grounded architecture that doesn’t just collect data — it tracks, maps, and models voter behavior in real time. Not to manipulate. But to understand. To expose. To explain.
We don’t exploit voters. We study them — to help the public, not political operatives, see what’s actually happening.
Because this election won’t be decided by slogans or vibes. It will come down to two things:
Targeted persuasion.
Surgical turnout operations.
That’s the Zoose model: not direct participation, but illumination. And you’re watching it unfold.
⚖️ The Ethical Edge — and the Danger
Is this just advertising on steroids?
Not quite.
Here’s the key difference:
Traditional digital advertising:
Targets demographics (age, zip code, income)
Responds to behavior (clicks, site visits, purchase history)
Optimizes for sales or engagement — not belief systems
AI-driven persuasion engines:
Model emotional states, not just demographics
Predict behavior before it happens
Test and deploy emotional triggers at scale
Don’t stop at selling products — they can shape decisions, including who to vote for… or whether to vote at all
That’s the ethical tension. When deployed without guardrails, these tools can:
Suppress votes by deepening cynicism or disengagement
Polarize individuals through hyper-targeted emotional appeals
Outpace transparency — with no visibility into the full strategy except for those controlling the algorithm
At Zoose, we’ve built in guardrails:
Human review layers before messaging is deployed
No suppression tactics allowed — not even hypothetically
Transparency-first approach — we tell voters when we’re testing persuasion
We’re not saying campaigns, PACs, and lobbyists would even consider using this tech unethically.
We’re just saying… we wouldn’t bet your democracy on it.
Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s this:
the algorithm won’t tell you it’s manipulating you. But we will.
So, can Zoose elect the next governor?
Not directly. We don’t fund campaigns. We don’t run ads.
BUT if you gave our persuasion engine to either side — and stripped away the ethical guardrails — then yes, it could.
Because we’re not just measuring voter sentiment.
We’re tracking how it moves.
We’re predicting it’s next move.
And in a race this tight, that’s not polling. That’s power.
The real question isn’t whether Zoose can tip an election.
It’s who else might be trying to — without telling you.
🧮 ZPI Rankings – Week 25
Sherrill Gains on Union Endorsements
Ciattarelli: 91.2 → 92.2 (+1.0)
Sherrill: 89.3 → 91.5 (+2.2))
Margin: Ciattarelli +0.7 (down from +1.9)
For the first time since the general election cycle began, Mikie Sherrill closed the gap significantly, driven by an avalanche of major union endorsements that provide both symbolic and operational muscle to her campaign. While Jack Ciattarelli maintains the top spot in the ZPI rankings, his lead has shrunk from 1.9 points to just 0.7 — the narrowest margin since the general election began.
This week’s gains weren’t just about quantity—they were about strategic weight. To understand how we got here, it’s worth pulling back the curtain on how Zoose assigns value to endorsements within the ZPI framework.
💼 Union Weighting Explained
Not all endorsements are created equal. At ZPI, we evaluate each based on three factors:
Institutional scale (size + influence)
Voter mobilization potential
Historical deviation (is this expected or surprising?)
Here’s how that breaks down:
What Happened This Week
🔵 For Sherrill:
UFCW Locals (66,000 members)
SMART Sheet Metal Workers (10,000+ members)
NJ State Pipe Trades (11,000 members)
These are major trades, and while historically aligned with Democrats, the timing of their endorsements matters. Many of them backed Sweeney or Fulop in the primary. Their pivot now consolidates Democratic labor behind Sherrill and reactivates large field operations, including GOTV efforts and earned media amplification.
🟥 For Ciattarelli:
• IUOE Local 825 (8,000 members)
A rare GOP-friendly labor endorsement. IUOE backed Murphy in 2017 and stayed neutral in 2021. Their move to Ciattarelli signals disruption of Democratic labor dominance and earns a +0.5 ZPI bump.
🪔 Also this week:
• New Jersey Family Policy Center (conservative Christian advocacy group)
While not a union, their endorsement aligns with Ciattarelli’s socially conservative base and may support narrative consolidation among right-leaning, faith-based voters. No direct turnout infrastructure, but high resonance in issue-based messaging.
📌 Union Leadership vs. Rank-and-File Reality
While union endorsements remain symbolically and operationally important, Zoose calibrates their influence with a critical distinction: union leadership ≠ automatic voter loyalty. Since 2016, Donald Trump has peeled off substantial portions of the union rank-and-file — particularly white, male, non-college voters in the trades — even when leadership backed Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris. In our ZPI model, we account for that divergence by downgrading the turnout bump from endorsements that don’t align with demonstrated voter behavior in past cycles.
🌐 Context Matters
In 2021, Ciattarelli didn’t run on a labor-friendly platform and received very few union endorsements. He still earned 1.255 million votes. Meaning? Labor support isn’t essential to his base — but it’s highly additive to Sherrill’s.
This week’s union movement doesn’t just help Sherrill catch up in ZPI; it signals a post-primary realignment. These endorsements reflect consolidation, momentum, and activation — especially among working-class voters across both urban and suburban battlegrounds.
And this shift isn’t just symbolic. It feeds directly into the turnout infrastructure Sherrill must rely on — particularly to mobilize pragmatic progressives and union households in places like Middlesex, Essex, and Camden.
If these union gains begin translating into field strength and emotional alignment with key voter blocs, Sherrill may continue to climb in the coming weeks.
🔥 Late-Breaking: Obama Joins the Fray
On Friday night, former President Barack Obama headlined a high-dollar DNC fundraiser in Red Bank, New Jersey—alongside Governor Phil Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy—raising over $1.5 million. Representative Mikie Sherrill was in attendance, lending her campaign visibility within the broader Democratic infrastructure. For context, this is an average haul for an elite-donor dinner headlined by Obama.
It’s not just about the dollars—it’s about what it signals: national Democrats are fully engaged in this race, and with Obama’s name attached, that brings considerable momentum, validation, and mobilization potential in key crunch-time voter outreach.
🔥 8 Minutes a Week with ZPI = More Political Insight Than Most Insiders.
🔹 About Zoose® and Patrick Allocco
Zoose® is an award-winning technology company founded by Patrick Allocco, a veteran campaign operative and former Congressional candidate. Built on multi-patented AI and human-to-human communication tools, Zoose solves real-time challenges across industries—from global support services to political intelligence.
At the forefront of its civic innovation is the Zoose Political Index (ZPI)—a nonpartisan, AI-powered election analysis platform that delivers weekly rankings, turnout modeling, and data-driven insights. ZPI has become a trusted source for understanding the evolving dynamics of the 2025 New Jersey Governor’s race and soon beyond.
Patrick Allocco has advised and worked on campaigns at every level—State Senate, Congress, U.S. Senate, gubernatorial, and Presidential—giving him a uniquely practical perspective on voter behavior and strategic messaging. His experience in field operations and coalition-building fuels Zoose’s mission to cut through the noise with clarity, accuracy, and impact.
In 2024, Allocco was recognized in Who’s Who in America for U.S. Technology for his contributions to innovation and AI driven solutions.