Mark Mellman, one of the nation’s leading political strategists, is past President of the American Association of Political Consultants and CEO of The Mellman Group, a polling and consulting firm whose clients include leading political figures, Fortune 500 companies, and some of the nation’s most important public interest groups.
Mellman has helped guide the campaigns of thirty U.S. Senators, a dozen Governors, over three dozen Members of Congress, and numerous state and local officials.
His clients have included Senators Harry Reid, Maria Cantwell and Brian Schatz; Governors Tony Evers, Jennifer Granholm, Jim Doyle and Christine Gregoire; and Members of Congress Jared Golden, Steny Hoyer, Annie Kuster, Ben McAdams and Seth Moulton.
Internationally, Mellman was chief strategist and pollster for Yair Lapid’s stunning rise from zero seats in the Israeli parliament to the country’s second largest party, in just one year. He also aided the African National Congress in South Africa, helped Cesar Gavira become President of Colombia and Luli Basha defeat the international Mayor of the Year in Albania. Twice he has been honored for running the Best Campaign outside the U.S.
The Mellman Group’s string of upset victories and unparalleled accuracy recently brought the firm the prestigious “Pollster of the Year” award from the American Association of Political Consultants more often than any other firm.
The New York Times’ Nate Silver cited The Mellman Group as the most accurate campaign pollster in the country and the firm won a series of Reed Awards from Campaigns & Elections magazine including two for “Campaign Comeback of the Year,” “Best Use of New Technology” (for our innovative internet-based ad testing), two for “Best International Campaign” and several for “Best Public Affairs Campaign.”
Newsweek credits his work on the environment with helping “turn Bill Clinton green.” The Economist recognized him as the “brains behind the Democrats’ successful ‘Mediscare’ strategy” and Politico described the firm’s role in developing Democrats’ economic messages, noting that Mellman’s manufacturing presentation “electrified Democratic leaders.”
Even Doonesbury has gotten into the act, labeling Mellman a “Prince of Polling” in a recent cartoon.
In addition, Mellman works with some of the nation’s most important public interest organizations ranging from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to the NEA, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, League of Conservation Voters, and the League of Women Voters.
Mellman received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and graduate degrees from Yale, where he teaches in the Political Science department.
He served as a consultant to CBS News for over two decades, and as a presidential debate analyst for PBS and The Wall Street Journal. Mellman’s op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal among others, and he writes an influential weekly column for The Hill, a newspaper “for and about Congress.”