2020 Rising Stars

We’re Proud to Announce the 2020 Class of Rising Stars

Since 1988, Campaigns & Elections has recognized the best young operatives in the campaign business with the coveted Rising Star award. It’s one of the most prestigious honors in the campaign world for a reason: industry giants are counted among the ranks of former Rising Stars.

Rising Star recipients have climbed to the heights of politics, launching dozens of successful consulting firms and serving at the highest levels of state and federal campaigns. Congratulations to our 2020 class of Rising Stars!

2020 Rising Stars

Democrat

Anatole Jenkins

Joe Biden for President,
National Director of States Organizing

Republican

Annie Kelly Kuhle

FP1 Strategies,
Managing Director

Democrat

Carla Aronsohn

Cultivate Strategie,
Co-Founder and Chief Digital Officer

International

Graham Godwin-Pearson

Democra,
Co-Founder

Democrat

Jesse Thomas

Bully Pulpit Interactive,
Director, Impact and Mobilization

International

José Francisco Valery

El Equipo de Campaña,
Director

Republican

Kelly Georgia

Deep Root Analytics,
VP, Data and Digital Partnerships

Republican

Kelsey Patten

Echelon Insights,
Vice President, Data and Analytics

Republican

Krista Carter

TAG Strategies,
Accounts Director

Republican

Lauren Bryan

Rep. Kevin McCarthy,
National Finance Adviser

Democrat

Lauren Lee

MBA Consulting Group,
Director

Democrat

Loren Merchan

Authentic Campaigns,
President and Partner

Democrat

Monica Gomez

Annie’s List,
Political Director

Republican

Nicole Fryling

Go BIG Media,
Senior Director of Graphic Design

Republican

Rory McShane

McShane LLC,
Founder

Democrat

Anatole Jenkins

Joe Biden for President, National Director of States Organizing

From building a grassroots infrastructure across all 50 states for the first Black woman to launch a formidable candidacy for president to leading the organizing efforts for the DCCC in 2018 that ushered in massive voter turnout and a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, Anatole Jenkins has been organizing at the forefront of tough and historic political fights for the span of his career.

Anatole got his start organizing for President Obama’s reelection campaign in Nevada before serving as the Coordinated Campaign Field Director for the Nevada State Democratic Party in 2014. He served in many leadership positions for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and in 2017 led efforts for the winning candidate in the most expensive local race in US history, a Los Angeles County School Board race. Since then, he has played a leading role in organizing against Donald Trump — at the DCCC, in his role as National Organizing Director for Kamala For The People and Organizing Together 2020, an independent campaign that focused on building the infrastructure needed for the eventual Democratic nominee.

Republican

Annie Kelly Kuhle

FP1 Strategies, Managing Director

Annie Kelly Kuhle is a managing director at FP1 Strategies. She has a proven track record as a campaign manager and strategist to high-profile campaigns and party committees across the country. Kuhle is currently serving as a senior advisor to Senator Martha McSally’s reelection campaign. She’s also serving as a media consultant to the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) IE in Iowa and to congressional candidates Lisa Scheller (PA-07), Tracey Mann (KS-01), James St. George (FL-03), and Dale Crafts (ME-02). Kuhle previously served as a regional political director at the NRSC and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). In 2014, Kuhle led the NRCC’s “Red Zone” program, which flipped five Democratic seats.

Democrat

Carla Aronsohn

Cultivate Strategie, Co-Founder and Chief Digital Officer

Carla Aronsohn is Co-Founder and Chief Digital Officer at Cultivate Strategies, a values-driven, queer led progressive digital agency. Cultivate Strategies planted its seeds in the summer of 2019 and has grown to work with over 20 clients, all of which are led by and serve women, people of color, and/or LGBTQ+ people. Carla runs the digital team for Fire Drill Fridays, Jane Fonda’s direct action climate protests, with a digital reach of over 15 million people and was named “the best thing on Twitter.” Carla was formerly the Senior Vice President of Strategy at Revolution Messaging, the lead Mobile Strategist for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign.

International

Graham Godwin-Pearson

Democra, Co-Founder

Graham Godwin-Pearson is a co-founder of Democra, an online campaigning consultancy based in the UK. Democra specialises in digital solutions for political parties, government and think tanks. In addition to single websites, Democra’s ‘Infinity’ allows multiple websites to be built, themed and maintained almost instantly. The first outing for this model was the Conservative Party, for whom Graham’s team of developers rebuilt 240 websites in 2010. Since then, the portfolio has grown to around 700 websites, including senior Cabinet Ministers. Graham works with political consultants and parties to ensure that everyone from the digital director to grassroots activists have the tools and skills to utilize the internet for political campaigning as effectively as possible.

Democrat

Jesse Thomas

Bully Pulpit Interactive, Director, Impact and Mobilization

As BPI’s Senior Director for Impact & Mobilization Jesse helps some of the nation’s top Democratic campaigns, Super PACs, and causes run effective digital advertising campaigns. Over the past 12 years, Jesse has honed his skills in digital marketing and technology at the highest levels of national politics. He has built products and programs that have raised millions of dollars, mobilized millions of voters, and helped to flip key districts from red to blue. The products he built for President Obama’s reelection campaign were used by over 1.5 million people to register to vote.

As Crowdpac’s Acting CEO Jesse built products that scores of first-time candidates, including several new members of congress, used to raise their earliest money online. In 2018 the tools he pioneered helped activists raise over $4 million for Susan Collins’ then unknown 2020 Democratic challenger in a matter of weeks. Jesse is also a creative strategist and storyteller and has developed high impact digital and television ads for groups like Unite the Country, NextGen Climate and Ady Barkan’s Be A Hero PAC.

International

José Francisco Valery

El Equipo de Campaña, Director

The son of a Venezuelan father and a Mexican mother, Francisco Paco Valery started his political career in 2007 when he successfully campaigned against a constitutional amendment proposed by then-Venezuelan President Chávez. Trained as a social psychologist, Valery has developed mobilization strategies for campaigns across Latin America. His resume includes working for Claudia Pavlovich, the first governor elected by popular vote in the Mexican state of Sonora, and the gubernatorial campaign of Marcela Amaya in Colombia in 2016. Valery has also worked on the winning presidential campaigns of Panama’s Laurentino “Nito” Cortizo, and Alejandro Eduardo Giammattei’s 2019 Guatemalan presidential victory.

Republican

Kelly Georgia

Deep Root Analytics, VP, Data and Digital Partnerships

Kelly joined Deep Root Analytics at the start of 2018. As VP of Data and Digital Partnerships, she works to bridge the divide between television and digital targeting using best in class data solutions. Prior to joining Deep Root, Kelly worked for the Super PAC American Crossroads and its affiliated Super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, as well as the issue advocacy organizations Crossroads GPS and One Nation. Kelly was Deputy Political Director and Digital Director for those organizations, focusing on digital measurement and cross screen optimization.

Republican

Kelsey Patten

Echelon Insights, Vice President, Data and Analytics

Kelsey Patten leads the data analytics practice at Echelon Insights, which is pioneering a new model for political data that seamlessly ties together strategic insights from polling with analytics technology that turns data into action. Kelsey joined Echelon following a stint at the National Republican Congressional Committee. There she was the first woman to head the committee’s data department.

In the 2018 election cycle, Patten led a team that created over 1,000 voter contact universes and over 200 unique district vote goals, analyzed 262 polls, and drafted over 50 modeling scripts for specific districts. Patten successfully collaborated with campaigns to design data-informed voter contact plans across field, mail, and digital. In 2016, Patten served as Data and Analytics Director for Senator Kelly Ayotte’s re-election effort in New Hampshire. Patten spearheaded all voter targeting totaling nearly 130 million targeted impressions on TV and online, and 1.3 million voter contacts.

Republican

Krista Carter

TAG Strategies, Accounts Director

Krista Carter serves as the Accounts Director at TAG Strategies, finding creative solutions to guarantee our clients have the most successful digital marketing programs and lead the field in fundraising. Since childhood, Krista has been active in local and state politics in her home state of Louisiana. The proud Louisiana Tech University alum has served in Republican politics at every level, finding a niche for online fundraising and email marketing. She served on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign as a Regional Political Director in North Carolina, Ken Cuccinelli’s Virginia gubernatorial run in 2013 as a Regional Director, and Finance Director for Rob Maness for U.S. Senate in 2014. Throughout the last two election cycles, Krista has raised millions of dollars digitally for clients around the country. As a recognized industry expert, Krista has served in numerous senior positions teaching clients to grow and optimize their email marketing and donor programs, helping them reach their goals.

Republican

Lauren Bryan

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, National Finance Adviser

Lauren Bryan is a nationally respected fundraiser with extensive experience at the RNC, RGA, NRSC, and NRCC. She currently serves as National Finance Adviser for Kevin McCarthy. In that role, she heads up the Republican House Leader’s record-breaking fundraising efforts: $33.5 million in just the first half of 2020 and more than $82 million in the 2020 cycle. In addition to managing his campaign fundraising, Lauren aids fellow members of the GOP caucus and the NRCC. Lauren also serves as a consultant to the Congressional Leadership Fund.

Before joining McCarthy’s team, Lauren served as a Regional Finance Director for the NRSC and prior to that, she was instrumental in shattering Super PAC fundraising records with funds raised in excess of $100 million as Regional Finance Director for Right to Rise. She then transitioned to the Jeb 2016 presidential campaign covering the Western Region. In the 2014 cycle, Lauren worked alongside 34 winning gubernatorial campaigns, serving as the Deputy Director of Recruitment at the RGA and helping raise more than $110 million.

Democrat

Lauren Lee

MBA Consulting Group, Director

If you’re looking for the unsung heroes in the campaign world, look no further than the compliance team. From the most expensive House campaign in history (Jon Ossoff in Georgia) to Julian Castro’s presidential race, Lauren Lee helps ensure Democratic candidates and staffs can properly track the millions of dollars they are raising. Lee joined MBA Consulting Group as a Compliance Director in 2015. With over 12 years of experience, Lauren possesses substantial compliance knowledge at the federal, state and local levels. Prior to MBA, Lauren worked as the Deputy Comptroller of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spanning 4 cycles of service. Additionally, she served as the chief in-house compliance specialist for Brian Moran’s gubernatorial campaign in Virginia and worked for Senator Mark Warner’s PAC, Forward Together. During her time with DDC Advocacy, a public affairs company, Lauren prepared campaign finance reports for the PACs of Fortune 500 companies.

Democrat

Loren Merchan

Authentic Campaigns, President and Partner

Throughout her career, Loren has fought hard to get results. Not just for her clients but for the industry as a whole and the people who work in it. Her work is setting new benchmarks and winning elections. In addition to doing ground-breaking, historical work for clients like Jon Tester, Kamala Harris, Adam Schiff, and others, Authentic Campaigns is setting new industry standards through its commitment to diversity, transparent compensation, employee benefits, and more. Loren is working to transform the industry by developing new best practices for the work we do for our clients as well as the work we do for our people.

Democrat

Monica Gomez

Annie’s List, Political Director

As political director of Annie’s List, Monica Gomez leads training for the Texas-based progressive organization that recruits, supports, and elects pro-choice women to state and local office. Notably, she led the successful defeat of an eighteen-year incumbent to elect her father to the New Mexico House of Representatives in 2014. Monica’s connection to Annie’s List dates back to 2016 when she began to fully move into Texas politics, serving as the campaign manager for future Annie’s List Champion and State Rep. Lina Ortega’s primary race (HD-77). She then returned for the 2016 general to manage State Rep. Victoria Neave’s highly contested race in Dallas (HD-107), winning by 836 votes.

During her three-year tenure, she has trained more than 1,000 women to run for office, created one of the largest and most comprehensive campaign staffer training programs in the country, and worked with hundreds of women running for state and local offices in the state of Texas. In 2018, under Monica’s political direction, Annie’s List won 31 of 37 races in which it invested in. This cycle, she is aggressively working to endorse and elect more women than ever in the organization’s history.

Republican

Nicole Fryling

Go BIG Media, Senior Director of Graphic Design

Nicole Fryling knows what it’s like to do high-volume creative work under pressure. Over the past two cycles, she’s designed for a wide variety of campaigns ranging from gubernatorial contests and competitive Senate seats to small-town sheriff races. With her extensive background in public relations, logo creation and branding, Nicole focuses on designing for a candidate’s audience in a way that’s both memorable and effective. Since joining Go BIG Media, she has made it her mission to prove that design not only matters in campaigns, but it can also make the difference between a message resonating with an audience or falling flat. She’s currently Senior Director of Graphic Design, overseeing a team of passionate designers who are encouraged to take the lead projects and to bend the rules of traditional design.

Republican

Rory McShane

McShane LLC, Founder

Rory McShane is a political and media consultant originally from Maryland. Rory has managed or advised political campaigns, corporations, and initiatives in twenty-seven states. Rory’s political clients have included members of Congress, statewide constitutional officers, state legislators, county and municipal officials, political action committees, and multiple successful ballot initiatives. In 2016, Rory was part of a successful effort to change the state constitutions of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota to provide more rights to victims of violent crimes. And in 2018, Rory’s firm, McShane LLC, brought home 22 victories, with political clients in 10 states.

We’re Proud to Announce the 2020 Class of Rising Stars