Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Republican party for the state of Michigan, opens his laptop over lunch. At his fingertips is a voter database. Pulling up his own file he scrolls through more than 100 pieces of information, including his support for an assisted-suicide prohibition bill, his boat licence, sports interests and Catholicism.

His profile is part of a database called Voter Vault, which will be critical in the Republican midterm election campaign. Using basic voter information, with data analysis derived from polls of up to 50,000 voters and consumer databases, the party hopes to apply algorithms to predict how groups of people intend to vote and craft a message that appeals to them.