How to Use Randomized Control Trials to Influence Politics

How do randomized control trials work in politics? It's not a direct translation of the medical trial because you have a hard outcome in each individual that you can measure from time A to time B. We bring people into, typically what we do is an online survey environment. And then they're randomly assigned to either a control group where they get the equivalent of a placebo. Other people are randomly assigned into a treatment, the actual message. After that, we typically will measure support for Republican versus Democrat or policy.