Trump’s big-data gurus scout presidential candidate in Mexico

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the president of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), speaks at a press conference given with Delfina Gomez (out of frame), the party's candidate for governor of the state of Mexico, to demand a recount of the votes from Sunday's elections, in Mexico City on June 9, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Pedro Pardo

Cambridge Analytica, the big-data firm that advised President Donald Trump in his successful election campaign, is turning to Mexico in search of a new presidential candidate to get behind. 

Cambridge is partnering with Pig.gi, a phone app in Mexico and Colombia that gives 200,000 active users free service in exchange for watching ads, reading stories and taking surveys. The analytics firm is hoping to use data mined from Pig.gi to help a candidate in Mexico’s July 2018 presidential election, and several political parties have already expressed interest, according to both companies.