Named a national “Rising Star of Politics” by Campaigns & Elections magazine in 2007, Jeff Hewitt has worked in every facet of political campaigns and earned a reputation during a career spanning over two decades for bringing focus and vision to competitive races.
Hewitt served on the Clinton-Gore campaign staff, founded a political consulting firm, managed a variety of campaigns, and served as an advisor for a variety of congressional races throughout the U.S. He has developed his experience in managing races and campaign budgets into a unique forté of raising money – more than $40 million for Democratic candidates – and has directed more than 1,000 fundraising events over the past 13 years.
His political career began as a 13-year-old door-to-door canvasser to save the historic 19th century Monumental Building in Sidney, Ohio. He was hooked. From there, it was on to precinct and fieldwork for city council candidates and local school board members. And the Monumental Building Levy today stands as the only completely restored building in Ohio dedicated solely to veterans of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
While attending Ohio State University, Hewitt served as a legislative intern in both the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate.
In the days after the 1992 National Democratic Convention, Hewitt volunteered for the Clinton/Gore ticket as the first of the ticket’s now-famous bus tours got underway. His performance landed him a paid position on the campaign, which sent him to 34 states. At 20 years of age, he was one of the youngest paid staffers, helping coordinate the bus tours and serving on the advance team, including for Tipper Gore at the family’s polling place in Carthage, Tennessee.
After managing a successful state House primary in Virginia, Hewitt became a national finance director for Cunningham, Plante and Associates, a leading national fundraising firm. He worked statewide, legislative, and municipal campaigns in Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
As finance director for Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Mark Singel’s gubernatorial campaign in 1993-94, Hewitt helped raise more than $9 million – then a record for Pennsylvania Democrats. In 1995, he consulted for Baltimore Comptroller Joan Pratt, the first African American Comptroller of a major U.S. city, and worked for the New Jersey Democratic Caucus, as well as the mayoral campaign of Jake Godbold in Jacksonville, Florida.
In 1996-97, Hewitt was a campaign manager and consultant for the Philadelphia-based firm, the Campaign Group, where he also served as media and political advisor on a number of statewide and congressional races.
Hewitt founded his own firm in 1998. Now known as Hewitt Campaigns, Inc., he and his staff worked on dozens of high-profile national, state, and local candidates. These include John Sharp for Texas Lt. Governor; Mayor Miguel Pulido in Santa Ana, California; Judge Tim Black for Ohio Supreme Court; Mississippi Senator Barbara Blackmon for Lt. Governor; and Richard Morrison, the challenger who surprised the political world in 2004 by holding then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to 10 percent below his previous margins.
Along the way, Hewitt has raised more than $40 million from 200,000 contributors in all 50 states. His efforts have helped elect an 18-year-old to the Ohio State House (the youngest legislator in the country), the first-ever Vietnamese-American legislator in Texas, and more winning state House challengers in Texas than any other Democratic strategist in 2004.
Hewitt is a member of the American Association of Political Consultants. He has been a featured presenter for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, New Hampshire Democratic Party, Ohio Democratic House Caucus, Ohio University, Oklahoma Democratic Party, Penn State University-Harrisburg, and the University of Texas at Austin. A student of history at the Harvard Extension School in Cambridge, Mass., Hewitt attended Ohio State University and the Democratic National Committee Campaign School.
Jeff Hewitt
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