Contact:

Alana Joyce
Executive Director
+1 703-245-8021
[email protected]

 

For Immediate Release

May 17, 2022

AAPC Announces 2022 Class of 40 Under 40 Award Winners

San Juan, Puerto Rico (May 17, 2022) —The American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC)—America’s only bipartisan association of political professionals— today announced the winners of the 2022 40 Under 40 Awards program recognizing the best and brightest young professionals working in the United States. Selected from more than 200 nominations, the winners were recognized at an awards ceremony during the 2022 Pollie Awards & Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Tuesday, May 17, 2022.

“The judging process was especially difficult this year, with such high volume of outstanding young professionals nominated. We are encouraged to see so many high achieving young politicos rise up within the industry, and salute this year’s winners,” said AAPC President Becki Donatelli. “We have no doubt that the 2022 Class of 40 Under 40 will continue to even greater successes as political consultants and help educate and inspire other rising stars in the industry, ”added AAPC Vice President Larry Huynh.

“We are thrilled to congratulate this year’s winners of the 40 Under 40 Awards. As a leader in the political text message marketing industry, it’s our pleasure to watch these individuals succeed in their profession and to contribute in a small way in their digital marketing journey,” added Kevin Fitzgerald, Tatango CEO.

The AAPC is dedicated to fostering the next generation of political professionals and is proud to recognize leaders and innovators in the political business community (including media, advertising, polling and public affairs) who are making a mark in their organization and their profession.

Winners of the AAPC 2022 40 Under 40 Awards

Democratic Winners	Republican Winners
Ryan Berni, Berni Consulting	Michael McCollum Adams, TAG Strategies
Mollie Binotto, Sena Kozar Strategies	Sarah Clamp, Prime Media Partners
Kati Bumgardner, Counterpoint Messaging	Chazz Clevinger, OneClickPolitics
Marshall Cohen, Democratic Governors Association (DGA)	Lindsay Shuba Donnelly, TLC Political
Seferiana Day, Upper Left Strategies	Kaeley Gemmill, Targeted Victory
Katelynd Duncan, KJD Strategies	Joseph Goetz, NRCC
Zandria Haines, SBDigital	Amanda Iovino, WPA Intelligence
Joshua Handelman, Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee	Matt Kenney, Camelback Strategy Group
Danny Kazin, American Bridge	Danny Laub, POOLHOUSE
Adam Kirsch, Change Research	Caeli Mahon, Targeted Victory
Angela Kuefler, Global Strategy Group	Katie Martin, Big Dog Strategies
Byron LaMasters, InFocus Campaigns	George Nassar, Public Opinion Strategies
Ben Lazarus, TargetSmart	Joey Parr, Murphy Nasica
Alesa Mackool, ACM Strategies	Sean Philbin, Smart Media Group
Henri Makembe, Do Big Things	Christiana Purves, Push Digital & Laurens Group
Ishanee Parikh, Future Forward USA Action	Martin Rini, Targeted Victory
Marilyn Báez Rodríguez, 303 Digital	Jeffrey Snow, 936 Media
Tess Troha-Thompson, New Blue Interactive	Edith Jorge-Tuñon, Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC)
Bryan Boo Yuen, Putnam Partners	Phil Vangelakos, Push Digital, LLC
	Adam Wise, National Media
Independent Winner: Stephen Miller, Kivvit

About the 2022 AAPC Pollie Conference
As the premier industry event, the 2022 Pollie Awards & Conference is held in San Juan, Puerto Rico from May 17-19, 2022 and brings the leading political professionals in the world together to network and hear from top technology innovators, pollsters, pundits and service providers. The Conference features cutting-edge programming on key industry trends, designed to empower attendees to leverage the latest techniques in campaign strategy and management. The Conference is widely recognized as the must-attend event for political consultants, media buyers, public affairs specialists, suppliers, industry leaders and journalists. For details, visit www.theaapc.org.

About AAPC
Founded in 1969, the AAPC is a multi-partisan organization of political and public affairs professionals dedicated to improving democracy. The AAPC has over 1,400 members hailing from all corners of the globe.  It is the largest association of political and public affairs professionals in the world. For more information, see www.theaapc.org.

About Tatango

Since 2007, Tatango has provided easy-to-use SMS marketing software and industry expertise to political and nonprofit organizations and causes looking to achieve their fundraising goals. Tatango has become a market leader powering SMS and MMS campaigns designed to drive fundraising results. With billions of messages sent, Tatango’s marketing software has been time-tested to deliver positive fundraising outcomes.

May 9, 2022

CONTACT:
Alana Joyce
Executive Director
703-245-8021
[email protected]

 

Haley Barbour, Alexander Gage and Mandy Grunwald Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

AAPC Announces 2022 Hall of Fame Inductees

 

Washington, D.C. (May 9, 2022) — The American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) — America’s largest and only bipartisan network of political professionals — announced Haley Barbour, Alexander Gage, and Mandy Grunwald as this year’s inductees into the AAPC Hall of Fame. The awards will be presented at a ceremony on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, sponsored by Home Team Sports, Playfly and Political Marketing + Media in conjunction with the annual AAPC Pollie Awards & Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

AAPC annually selects accomplished industry professionals for induction into its Hall of Fame. This is the highest honor that working members of the profession can bestow upon a colleague. The award recognizes honorees’ influence on other political consultants and public affairs professionals, the length and seriousness of their careers and their commitment to ethical business practices.

“It’s a privilege to honor such innovative and high-achieving individuals and firms in the industry,” said AAPC President Becki Donatelli.

“The impact that this year’s Hall of Fame inductees have had on the political consulting industry is immeasurable. We are excited to celebrate their achievements in person at the Pollie Conference,” added AAPC Vice President Larry Huynh.

“Home Team Sports, Playfly Sports and Political Marketing + Media are thrilled to take part in honoring this year’s Hall of Fame inductees,” said Stephen Ullman, Managing Partner of Political Marketing + Media. “The impact Alex, Haley and Mandy have had on this industry is outstanding and is well deserving of celebration.”

Previous Hall of Fame inductees include Lee Atwater, David Axelrod, Ross Bates, Paul Begala, Charlie Black, James Carville, Alex Castellanos, Joseph Cerrell, Wally Clinton, Roger Craver, Morris S. Dees, Linda DiVall, Thomas Edmonds, Arthur Finkelstein, Joseph Gaylord, David Garth, Bob Goodman, George Gorton, Stanley Greenberg, William Hamilton, Peter D. Hart, Allen Hoffenblum, Gale Kaufman, Donna Lucas, Eddie Mahe, Jr., Ellen Malcolm, Hal Malchow, Jim Margolis, Minyon Moore, Joe Napolitan, Lyn Nofziger, David Plouffe, Matt Reese, Ed Rollins, Karl Rove, Robert Shrum, Lionel Sosa, Stuart Spencer, Bob Squire, Greg Stevens, Ray Strother, Tony Schwartz, V. Lance Tarrance, Jr., Robert Teeter, Nancy Todd, Paul Tully, Richard Viguerie, F. Clifton White and Dick Woodward.

About the 2022 AAPC Hall of Fame Inductees

Haley Barbour, Founding Partner of BGR Group, returned to BGR in January 2012 after serving two consecutive terms as Governor of Mississippi, including two years as the Chairman of the Republican Governors Association. At BGR, he heads advocacy coalitions, lobbies on behalf of clients and remains a major force in Republican party politics and elections. Gov. Barbour began his political career in 1968, dropping out of college to work on Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign; he later served as Political Director of the Reagan White House. From 1993 to 1997, Gov. Barbour served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. In 2003, he was elected Governor of Mississippi, assuming office in January 2004. After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, Gov. Barbour received national recognition from the bipartisan American Legislative Exchange Council for his swift response to the worst natural disaster in American history. For his efforts to rebuild the Mississippi Gulf Coast, he received the Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award. The Hill newspaper has listed Gov. Barbour as one of Washington’s top lobbyists annually since his return to the firm in 2012.

Alexander Patton Gage began his professional career in 1974 as a survey research analyst at Market Opinion Research (MOR), where Robert M. Teeter, considered one of the founders of modern political campaign research, tapped Gage to be a part of the 1976 campaign for President Gerald R. Ford. Gage has participated in various capacities in every GOP presidential campaign since then. In 2003, Gage left MOR and founded TargetPoint Consulting, Inc., where he was a pioneer in the emerging field of microtargeting. Today, TargetPoint remains a leader in microtargeting and public opinion research. A constant innovator, Gage left TargetPoint in 2016 to focus his attention on G2 Analytics, a market research firm he co-founded to revolutionize how video content is measured and analyzed. Under his leadership, G2 Analytics has become a leader in political video testing.

Mandy Grunwald is the founder and president of Grunwald Communications, one of the leading Democratic media firms in the country and the most successful woman-owned media consultancy ever. Mandy is one of the few women at the top of the field, has elected numerous Senators and Governors and is the only woman in history to run the advertising for a successful presidential campaign (Bill Clinton’s). Mandy has helped elect six current Senators — Senator Tammy Baldwin, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Senator John Hickenlooper, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Senator Elizabeth Warren, and worked on successful independent expenditures for Senators Sherrod Brown, Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly, Chris Murphy and Jackie Rosen. She is also known for her work for all Hillary Clinton’s Senate and Presidential campaigns.

About the 2022 AAPC Pollie Conference

As the premier industry event, the 2022 Pollie Awards & Conference is held in San Juan, Puerto Rico from May 17-19, 2022, and brings the leading political professionals in the world together to network and hear from top technology innovators, pollsters, pundits and service providers. The Conference features cutting-edge programming on key industry trends, designed to empower attendees to leverage the latest techniques in campaign strategy and management. The Conference is widely recognized as the must-attend event for political consultants, media buyers, public affairs specialists, suppliers, industry leaders and journalists. For details, visit www.theaapc.org.

About AAPC

Founded in 1969, the AAPC is a multi-partisan organization of political and public affairs professionals dedicated to improving democracy. The AAPC has over 1,500 members hailing from all corners of the globe. It is the largest association of political and public affairs professionals in the world. For more information, see www.theaapc.org.

About Political Marketing + Media

Founded in 2014, Political Marketing + Media specializes in matching political candidates, committees + advocacy groups with the best local, regional + national sports, news and entertainment programming and events. For more information, see politicalmarketingandmedia.com.

The AAPC recently caught up with pollsters Celinda Lake and John Anzalone from the Biden for President campaign who shared their experience on their success from the 2020 Presidential campaign. The team is also the recipient of AAPC’s 2021 Democratic Campaign of the Year Award.

What specific team efforts contributed to the success of the campaign?

“Team” permeated the campaign from the beginning and that really contributed to the success. The pollsters worked very well together, solicited each other’s opinions, shared data and methodology, and clearly understood from day one that we were all in this together while facing a very difficult task in the primary and the general. This campaign had remarkable coordination between the “big data” operation and the polling and we worked hard to share methodology and compare insights and findings for the maximum impact. The entire team was very message oriented and benefitted from interactions with the policy people. We also were led by an amazing message team with Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn. The field operation and Jenn Ridder worked hard to implement the findings across mediums and to understand the value of traditional and big data targeting. Jennifer O’Malley Dillon set a strong tone from day one of “one team” and did an amazing job of assembling and leading a campaign virtually. First and foremost we were also led by a candidate and spouse who listened to the data, knew who they were and their values, and were open to good and bad news.

What tools did your team use to keep the campaign organized?

The tools that we used as pollsters were daily conversations, exchanging all materials and drafts, and sharing insights from all the work we were doing. Deep respect and affection and a good sense of humor helped us throughout. In our firm and in all their firms we were aided with such strong teams and partners.

How big of a role did social media marketing play in the success of the campaign?

Constant monitoring of social media by the DNC was superb, as well as the exchange of information so that we could compare what we were seeing in the polling with what was happening in social media responses, and flexible rapid testing using social media.

What was the biggest obstacle that your team faced on the campaign trail, and how did you overcome it?

Two big obstacles occurred. It’s hard to speak on the difficulty of exchanging information and having input when everything is socially distanced and on zoom. The sharing of information had to be formalized. It made it much harder to have input and to share than when we were all in one place. We overcame it with really good coordination from Julia Kennedy and a deep commitment to full sharing. We experimented with a variety of state and national coordination meetings. The state teams were also very data oriented and did an excellent job of consuming the data. The second obstacle was the difficulty of beating Donald Trump. The campaign and Joe Biden knew from day one how extraordinarily difficult that was. Then came the overlay of COVID-19 and the impact that had on field and GOTV. There was also the third stage of the campaign to protect the vote which our firm transitioned to day after the election.

What did you find most rewarding about working on this campaign?

The most rewarding part of the campaign was the success of the unity message and the economic message which were so authentic to Joe Biden. That was rivaled by the reward of beating Donald Trump. I truly believed from day one that Joe Biden was the candidate to beat Trump. It was very rewarding to work with such a talented group of pollsters to get the job done, share information and learn so much from them. It was rewarding to see our research turned directly in days to communications. It was very rewarding to work with two such powerful, principled women in Dr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

During AAPC’s most recent webinar, participants received tips on payment automation, unique ways to manage cash and more in preparation for yet another anticipated record breaking election cycle up ahead.

Key takeaways:

• Onboarding protocol: Media planners and strategists move a lot of money in a short amount of time. The security of this money cannot be sacrificed for the speed of it. It is so important to have an onboarding protocol in place for new clients in order to keep everyone’s information safe. It has become common to see fraudulent emails asking for wire transfers. It is always worth it to make that extra phone call to your client to double check before assuming the legitimacy of any financial communication.
• Process automation: With process automation, you can do more work, more efficiently, faster, and with less people. Investing in solutions that streamline the process for agencies can include revisions, electronic vendor confirmations, and more. This reduces data entry and increases the speed of payments. The electronic connectivity helps the media buyers and sellers really streamline their processes.
• Key to success for business owners: Business owners are so hyper aware of every dollar they spend and have to think a lot about low overhead. Cash management and budgeting is critical. If your programs are not making money, strategic decisions need to be made on what to cut and what to keep. You’ll be glad to have financial systems and best practices in place early when the time for big spending comes.

Click here to listen to the full recording for more insights!

Thanks to your generous donations, the AAPC Foundation provides scholarships to students who have shown a career interest in political consulting and public affairs an opportunity to attend the annual AAPC Pollie Awards & Conference.

This year, the AAPC Foundation selected Christine Cockley, a student from Ohio University pursuing a Master’s in Public Administration. We caught up with Christine to talk about her experience at the 2021 Pollie Conference.

AAPC: What was your biggest takeaway from the 2021 Pollie Conference?

Christine: I realized that I really miss working in the public sector professionally. Attending the educational sessions and networking with professionals in this space solidified my interest in the consulting field. When I first applied for the scholarship, I didn’t know that I was going to encounter so many intelligent people that work together across party lines.

AAPC: What new skills did you gain through this experience?

Christine: I was reminded that it is possible to get back into Conferences and networking even through a pandemic. It can be uncomfortable to put yourself out there during these times but rebuilding my networking skills is so essential to my career path.

AAPC: What was your favorite session and why?

Christine: My favorite session was Building Your Public Affairs Business because it was very applicable to my own interests. Trey Richardson was a phenomenal speaker and it was great to hear the success stories of all the speakers.

AAPC: What advice would you give to other young professionals looking to attend the Pollie Conference for the first time?

Christine: While networking is so important, you need to remember to sit back and soak in your surroundings. Instead of walking up to everyone you see, be aware of your surroundings and network mindfully. Take a mental note of the people you meet and connect with them on LinkedIn. When you send a request, go out of your way to mention a specific piece of your conversation so they remember who you are and where you met. Also, don’t forget to bring your business cards!

AAPC: If you were to describe this experience in one word, what would it be?

Christine: Unforgettable.