Jennifer O’Malley Dillon was the first woman to run a successful Democratic presidential campaign in 2020, before she was named President Joe Biden’s deputy chief of staff.
Who is Jennifer O’Malley Dillon?
Jen O’Malley Dillon started working in politics after she graduated from Tufts University in 1998. Her skills led to the chance to manage the gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Jim Davis in Florida in 2006. She played important roles in both of Barack Obama’s campaigns for president.
Early Life:
O’Malley Dillon didn’t just talk about politics; she also played three sports at Franklin High School to satisfy her competitive side. She then went to Tufts University, where she studied political science and was co-captain of the softball team until she graduated in 1998.
Read Also: cornell haynes iii
Work as an Executive:
She also worked as an executive for the Democratic National Committee and helped start a well-known political consulting firm. O’Malley Dillon became the first woman to run a winning Democratic presidential campaign when she took over Joe Biden’s operation in March 2020. She then became Biden’s deputy chief of staff.
Early Work on a Campaign:
After helping President Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign for a short time in 1996, O’Malley Dillon dove into campaign work by answering phones for Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger’s 1998 run for governor.
Campaign for President:
She became a volunteer coordinator for Al Gore’s campaign for president in 2000. Because she was good at organizing, she was given more tasks during the contested recount. In 2002, she was the field director for Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who barely won his U.S. Senate race, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who won her Senate runoff.
In Charge of Field Operations:
O’Malley Dillon was in charge of field operations in Iowa for John Edwards’s 2004 presidential campaign. Later that year, he became the deputy manager for South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle’s re-election campaign. In November 2005, when she was 29 years old, she was named campaign manager for Jim Davis’s bid to become Florida governor.
Jennifer Brigid O’Malley Dillon, the second of Kevin and Kathleen O’Malley’s four children, was born on September 28, 1976, in Boston, Massachusetts.
School Principal and Superintendent:
Kevin was a school principal and superintendent. Kathleen was a teacher. So, O’Malley Dillon knew how important a good education was. She also caught the family’s love of politics. Her dad was president of their neighborhood association in Jamaica Plain, which brought longtime Boston Mayor Kevin White to visit. Her cousin Matt O’Malley went on to become a city councilman.
Study of Political Science:
O’Malley Dillon didn’t just talk about politics; she also played three sports at Franklin High School to satisfy her competitive side. She then went to Tufts University. Where she studied political science and was co-captain of the softball team until she graduated in 1998.
Early Work on a Campaign:
After helping President Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign for a short time in 1996, O’Malley Dillon dove into campaign work by answering phones for Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger’s 1998 run for governor.
Obama Aide:
After starting the 2008 election cycle with the Edwards team, O’Malley Dillon worked for Obama’s campaign as the director of the battleground states operation and then as the associate director of personnel for President-elect Obama. As Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign’s deputy manager, O’Malley Dillon was in charge of voter education and political outreach.
Deputy Chief of Staff and Campaign Manager for Biden:
Beto O’Rourke hired O’Malley Dillon as his campaign manager when he ran for president in 2020. However, poor poll numbers and the former Texas congressman’s decision to drop out of the race in the fall of 2019 were too much for the pair to overcome.
Coronavirus Pandemic Force:
Then, on March 12, 2020, she was named Biden’s campaign manager, right before the coronavirus pandemic forced the campaign’s headquarters in Philadelphia to close. Working from the storage room of her Maryland home, O’Malley Dillon focused on online fundraising to help the candidate’s finances. She also brought in a group of younger surrogates to work with Biden’s longtime staff and stressed the importance of winning back the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which went to Donald Trump in 2016.
Run A Winning Democratic Presidential Campaign:
President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence lost to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on November 7, 2020. This made O’Malley Dillon the first woman to run a winning Democratic presidential campaign and the second woman overall after Kellyanne Conway in 2016.
Job in the West Wing:
On November 17, O’Malley Dillon got her first job in the West Wing as the president’s deputy chief of staff. Before that, she had worked on seven presidential campaigns.
DNC Executive:
O’Malley Dillon was named executive director of the Democratic National Committee in early 2009. She was in charge when the party did badly in the 2010 midterm elections, which led her to change the party’s strategy for organising at the grassroots level and using social media before leaving the job in spring 2011.
Lead a Nonprofit Group:
O’Malley Dillon went back to the DNC in 2017 to lead its Unity Reform Commission. Before joining the O’Rourke campaign in early 2019, she was going to lead a nonprofit group that would help the party share large amounts of data.
Strategies with Precision:
In 2013, O’Malley Dillon joined forces with Stephanie Cutter and Teddy Goff, who had also worked for Obama, to start the consulting and marketing firm Precision Strategies. Among her first jobs for the company was consulting for the Liberal Party of Canada, whose leader, Justin Trudeau, was elected prime minister of Canada in 2015.
Experience:
Precision has also worked with well-known companies like General Electric, Bank of America, and the National Football League.
Personal Life:
Patrick Dillon and O’Malley Dillon met when they both worked on John Edwards’ presidential campaign in 2003. Before they got married on June 30, 2007, they got engaged while she was running Davis’ campaign in 2006 and he was running Chet Culver’s campaign for governor of Iowa at the same halkalı escort time.
Children:
Katie and Mary Dillon were born to O’Malley Dillon in November 2012. Obama was re-elect after on week.. Kevin, a son, was born in the spring of 2018. O’Malley Dillon told Time’s “40 Under 40” series in 2010 that she would probably be a coach if she hadn’t gone into politics. She has always loved sports.
