Kinney Zalesne was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for DC Delegate to Congress in 2026. She came in 3rd, winning more votes than any of the other 8 non-Councilmembers to run in either the Delegate’s or the Mayor’s race, and breaking every DC fundraising record for first-time candidates.
Earlier in her career, Kinney served as a Deputy National Finance Chair at the Democratic National Committee and National Co-Chair of Women for Kamala Harris. Previously, she served as General Manager of Corporate Strategy at Microsoft; Executive Vice President for the US at Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Life on Campus; president of Peer Forward, a national college access nonprofit that won Social Entrepreneur of the Year at Davos; Counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno at the US Justice Department; and White House Fellow with Vice President Al Gore.
Kinney is also the co-author of the New York Times bestseller, “Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes” and the regular Wall Street Journal column of the same name. She has written guest essays for the New York Times, Politico, The Christian Science Monitor, The Jerusalem Post, and elsewhere. Kinney was also Board Chair of Washington DC’s only Jewish Day School, a Senior Advisor to the Israel Constituent Assembly Project, and is now on the boards of DC’s Jewish Community Relations Council and of the US affiliate of the National Library of Israel.
Kinney graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in history and cum laude from Harvard Law School. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Jewish Studies at the Academy for Jewish Religion.