The campaign of Ex-Republican Assemblyman turned Democratic mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher has paid a San Francisco Bay area start-up run by an Obama campaign veteran who drills down on the habits and predilections of individual voters, giving Fletcher-backing billionaire Democrat Irwin Jacobs a potentially potent weapon in his political proxy war against wealthy GOP rival, U-T San Diego publisher Douglas Manchester.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/oct/11/54664/

The involvement of The Target Labs adds yet another level of intrigue to the increasingly fierce maneuvering by Qualcomm founder Jacobs, his son Paul, and a legion of big money Rancho Santa Fe high tech moguls who are backing them in their battle with the GOP and its Lincoln Club, financially supported by Manchester and his allies, including Predator drone maker Linden Blue and Las Vegas developer and FBI contractor Irwin Molasky.

As reported earlier this week, a hit piece dispatched by the Lincoln Club against Fletcher and his employer Qualcomm drew an unusually public response from company CEO Paul Jacobs, who subsequently demanded an apology and retraction for he called a "slanderous" attack.

Target Labs founder Hallie Montoya Tansey has long labored for Democratic causes, according to her start-up's website.

Hallie joined the Obama campaign in Nevada early in 2007, ultimately leading field operations for that campaign in New Mexico, Texas, Chicago HQ and Wisconsin. After the 2008 election, Hallie moved to DC and worked for the Obama Administration for more than 2 years at the Department of Education.

Hallie has consulted for organizations including New Media Ventures, a network of angel investors in the political technology space, Organizer, a startup specializing in mobile field operations for campaigns, and 50+1 Strategies, a San Francisco-based political consultancy.

Hallie studied analytics and targeting at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, where she earned her MBA in May 2013.

She described the mission of her new company on her tumblr.com page in June:

"We’ll use individual level polling data and voter file data provided to us by campaigns to build models that allow us to make highly accurate predictions about how likely each individual voter in a given district is to turnout to vote and/or to support the candidate or issue the campaign is working on."

"We’ll then support campaigns to use these predictions (expressed as voter scores) to guide their voter targeting decisions."

According to the Fletcher's campaign's most recent report, posted online yesterday by the city clerk's office, The Target Labs has so far received $11,500.

The payment was made through David Binder Research, a San Francisco consulting outfit that also arranged “exploratory focus groups” for the campaign in mid-August, prior to the August 23 reports of a resignation deal by embattled mayor Bob Filner, the report shows.

Travel and hotel stays related to the focus groups were booked beginning on August 11 through August 14, the report says. Fletcher’s committee filed its initial registration with the city clerk on August 20.

In addition, San Diego's Taylor Research was paid $15,653, and Mountain West Research Center of Pocatello, Idaho got $24,593.