https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/13/us/politics/trump-political-data.html Now for Rent: Email Addresses and Phone Numbers for Millions of Trump Supporters WASHINGTON — Early in his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump dismissed political data as an “overrated” tool. But after he won the Republican nomination, his team began building a database that offers a pipeline into the heart of the party’s base, a comprehensive list including the email addresses and cellphone numbers of as many as 20 million supporters. Excelsior is offering the chance to email Mr. Trump’s supporters at a rate of $35 per 1,000 addresses — or more if the renter also wants to push posts into the Facebook timelines of supporters — according to interviews and marketing emails obtained by The New York Times. The firm has also explored the possibility of clients’ being able to send text messages directly to the phones of Mr. Trump’s supporters, according to the marketing emails and interviews. “Republicans have suffered from being behind in small-dollar fund-raising, and the president, over the course of the campaign and his presidency, has built the largest Republican first-party data list,” said Mr. Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale, who engineered the agreement. “So giving other candidates and groups access to that data through a legal means to rent it was one of the best things I could do for the Republican ecosystem. And the campaign makes a little money, too. It’s a win-win.”