2020 Rising Stars

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.

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.

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.

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.