--- title: aKillion and Subtext Launch IONCandidate for Political Campaigns description: aKillion and Subtext have partnered to launch IONCandidate, a real-time AI platform that helps political campaigns engage voters via SMS, capture constituent insights, increase fundraising, and drive voter action through two-way conversations. image: https://info.joinsubtext.com/hubfs/Subtext%20%26%20Akillion.png --- [![Subtext Logo](https://info.joinsubtext.com/hubfs/subtextlogo.svg "Subtext")](https://joinsubtext.com/) Menu - Customers Open Dropdown Close Dropdown [Newsrooms & Media Newsrooms & Media Headlines, current events, local news…](https://joinsubtext.com/v/media) [Music Music Artists, labels, festivals...](https://joinsubtext.com/v/music) [Sports Sports Athletes, game coverage, podcasts…](https://joinsubtext.com/v/sports) [Marketing & Commerce Launches, events, affiliate marketing…](https://joinsubtext.com/v/marketing) [Creators Creators Influencers, podcasters, thought leaders…](https://joinsubtext.com/v/creators) [Politics & Advocacy Politics & Advocacy Politicians, PACs, organizations…](https://joinsubtext.com/v/politics) - Features Open Dropdown Close Dropdown [Features Overview Features Overview View all Subtext features at a glance](https://info.joinsubtext.com/features)[The Subtext Platform The Subtext Platform Broadcast composer, subscriber inbox...](https://joinsubtext.com/f/subtext-platform)[Subscriber Growth Tools Subscriber Growth Tools Landing pages, embeds, keyword sign-ups...](https://joinsubtext.com/f/subscriber-growth-tools)[Engagement Tools Engagement Tools Auto-replies, SMS surveys, drip sequences...](https://joinsubtext.com/f/engagement-tools)[Audience Segmentation Audience Segmentation Audience tags, segments, personalization...](https://joinsubtext.com/f/audience-segmentation)[Analytics, Subscriber Data & Reporting Analytics, Subscriber Data & Reporting Monthly reports, live analytics, 1st party data...](https://joinsubtext.com/f/analytics-reporting) [API & Webhooks API & Webhooks SMS API, subscriber management...](https://joinsubtext.com/f/api-webhooks) [Security, Compliance & Support Security, Compliance & Support 10DLC registration, audit logs...](https://joinsubtext.com/f/security-compliance) - [Case Studies](https://info.joinsubtext.com/case-studies) - [Blog](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog) - [Log In](https://joinsubtext.com/dashboard) - [Book a Demo](https://joinsubtext.com/#sign_up) ![](https://info.joinsubtext.com/hubfs/Subtext%20%26%20Akillion.png) # aKillion and Subtext Launch IONCandidate for Political Campaigns Published by [Subtext](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/author/subtext) on Jun 23, 2026 *By facilitating a conversation between candidates and prospective voters, IONCandidate ensures no voter touchpoint, engagement or donation is ever lost due to delayed response* [aKillion](https://akillion.us/) and [Subtext](https://joinsubtext.com/) announced a strategic partnership and the introduction of [IONCandidate](https://akillion.us/ioncandidate), a new conversational AI platform purpose-built for political campaigns, marketers, and agencies to better connect candidates to voters and communities through text messaging. Political texting has reached an inflection point. The tools campaigns have relied on were built for broadcast, not dialogue, leaving political marketers and agencies without a practical way to turn a text into a voter relationship. Additionally, the competition for voter attention has never been more fragmented or more expensive, and with ongoing redistricting, relocating polling sites, and shifting voter rolls reshaping the electoral map in 2026, the window to inform, engage, and mobilize voters is narrower than ever.  IONCandidate solves these challenges by integrating Subtext’s SMS platform infrastructure with aKillion's real-time AI system to engage voters in authentic dialogue at scale. At the core of IONCandidate is a candidate persona trained on the campaign's official platform, voting record, and approved messaging, requiring no staff training or manual oversight. When a constituent texts in, the platform responds immediately in the candidate's voice, qualifying intent and routing sensitive or complex conversations to a human staffer when needed, delivering a peak 4.77% response rate, nearly five times the current industry standard for political mobilization. Every exchange is captured, added to the individual voter file, and used to build audience segments from real conversation data rather than demographic proxies. The more conversations the platform has, the smarter the targeting and engagement becomes.  ![Akillion IONCandidate](https://info.joinsubtext.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Akillion%20IONCandidate.png?width=1478&height=984&name=Akillion%20IONCandidate.png) By evolving traditional peer-to-peer (P2P) texting — which is often limited by human bandwidth — aKillion’s AI employees combined with Subtext’s SMS platform process thousands of concurrent conversations. The result is increased agency bandwidth, immediate data collection and real-time voter file enrichment that builds the kind of constituent intelligence previously only achievable through intensive manual polling. By automating inbound voter sentiment and sentiment-based tagging, agencies can now manage massive budgets and complex voter files with significantly less manual labor. This allows Super PACs to reallocate funds from operational overhead to direct media spend, maximizing their impact on the 2026 election cycle. Executive Perspectives "We are moving the industry away from one-way broadcasts and toward actionable intelligence," said Aaron Sheeks, Founder and CEO of aKillion. "Partnering with Subtext gives our AI employees the most trusted SMS infrastructure in the business to work with, and the results speak for themselves. Candidates can now connect authentically with every community they represent, collect real polling data automatically, and turn those conversations into donation campaigns and real-time voter mobilization. That is what changes the operational math for a campaign." "Real-time, two-way communication is the only way to build genuine trust between a candidate and a voter," said Mike Donoghue, co-founder and CEO of Subtext. "We built Subtext to give organizations a direct, unfiltered line to their audiences, and our partnership with aKillion puts that infrastructure to work in one of the highest-stakes environments there is. With a 98% open rate and 95% of messages read within three minutes, SMS is the most personal, direct, unfiltered line to constituents available. Together with aKillion, we have built the infrastructure and the intelligence layer that makes every one of those messages count." A Senior Strategic Advisor for a 2026 regional campaign utilizing the technology noted:![Akillion IONCandidate quote2](https://info.joinsubtext.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Akillion%20IONCandidate%20quote2.png?width=760&height=178&name=Akillion%20IONCandidate%20quote2.png) The trust established through conversational SMS shows a direct correlation to increased performance in traditional channels. When a major D.C.-focused campaign needed to break through the noise and mobilize voters, they turned to IONCandidate. Through a targeted SMS outreach campaign of nearly 71,000 texts, the effort resulted in a 2% response rate — well above industry benchmarks — while keeping opt-outs to less than 1%. Of those who engaged, nearly 14% converted into donors, generating 115 contributions in total. The results prove that thoughtful audience targeting and data-driven messaging can maximize engagement, minimize list attrition, and drive real fundraising results, even in the most crowded political environments.  Further data indicates that when integrated with IONCandidate’s SMS strategy, email outperformed industry benchmarks by over 700%. | **Key Performance Indicator (KPI)** | **IONCandidate Result** | **Industry Benchmark** | | --- | --- | --- | | Email Click-Through Rate (CTR) | 6.04% | 0.83% | | Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR) | 18.30% | 2.96% | | Email List Retention | 99.77% | 99.50% | | SMS Response vs. Industry Average | 4.7x Higher | 1.0x | The exceptionally low unsubscribe rate of 0.23% confirms that the AI-managed conversational approach fosters a more receptive audience across the entire digital ecosystem, preventing the "list burnout" that often plagues high-stakes races. Availability IONCandidate is available now. Campaigns, political marketers, and political agencies can book a demo at [akillion.us/ioncandidate](https://akillion.us/ioncandidate). Tags: [Partnership announcement](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/tag/partnership-announcement), [Press](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/tag/press) [Back to Blog](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog) ### Ready to start texting? [Schedule a Demo](https://info.joinsubtext.com/book-a-demo) ## Related Articles ## [Political Goals & Voting Polls: Text Messages in Elections](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/political-goals-voting-polls-text-messages-in-elections) Information travels at high speeds in the modern political landscape. Attention spans are... [Read More](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/political-goals-voting-polls-text-messages-in-elections) ## [Texting the 2026 Midterms: An SMS Playbook for Newsrooms | Subtext](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/texting-the-midterms-playbook-2026) The 2026 midterms will be noisy. People will have real questions, real confusion, and a lot of... [Read More](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/texting-the-midterms-playbook-2026) ## [How to Use SMS to Engage Voters and Constituents](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/how-to-use-sms-to-engage-voters-and-constituents) Midterms kick off March 1st in Texas which begins the whirlwind of this election season. As 10DLC... [Read More](https://info.joinsubtext.com/blog/how-to-use-sms-to-engage-voters-and-constituents) [![Subtext Logo](https://info.joinsubtext.com/hubfs/Morgan/subtext_footer_logo.svg "Subtext")](https://joinsubtext.com/) Subtext was founded in 2019 in New York City by Advance Alpha Group. © 2026 Subtext. All rights reserved. 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