Tara McGowan (born 1985 or 1986) is an American political strategist and former journalist. She was the co-founder and CEO of multiple organizations which have been noted for large expenditures on digital advertising in preparation for the
2020 United States presidential election, including the political organization
Acronym, the company Lockwood Strategy, and the media company
Courier Newsroom. She was the director of the advertising branch of
Priorities USA Action, which was the primary super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, and was a digital producer for the re-election campaign of
Barack Obama. Previously, she was the press secretary for
United States SenatorJack Reed. In 2021, she stepped down from Acronym to build media full-time as head of a new company,
Good Information Inc.[2]
In 2016, McGowan directed the $42 million digital advertising branch of Priorities USA Action, the primary super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.[5][6] It was the largest ever ad campaign by the PAC.[7]
Shortly after founding Lockwood Strategy,[3] McGowan co-founded the digital advertising organisation Acronym together with Michael Dubin[7] and with
Laurene Powell Jobs and
Reid Hoffman's financial backing.[10] Within just over a year, Acronym had raised tens of millions of dollars for digital advertising campaigns, running more than 100 ad campaigns and registering 60,000 voters.[1]
One of McGowan's projects, called Courier Newsroom, is a for-profit media company that produces digital newspapers in
Arizona,
Michigan,
North Carolina,
Pennsylvania,
Virginia, and
Wisconsin, with the aim of filling
news deserts in
swing states by providing regional news coverage from a left-wing perspective.[11] McGowan's goal of creating a partisan online newsroom is partly intended to combat online
fake news, which led The New Yorker to label McGowan "a starry-eyed techno-utopian" for her stated belief that digital information is the most effective way to combat digital misinformation.[12]
McGowan has been credited with significant innovations in digital political strategy, and has often been described as one of the few progressive strategists to focus specifically on digital media. Joshua Green, writing for Bloomberg News, wrote that McGowan has "gained notoriety for her outspoken criticism of her party's inability to challenge, or even clearly comprehend, Trump's dominance of the digital landscape".[11] Similarly,
Ozy magazine called her "The Democrats' most dangerous digital strategist", with Nick Fouriezos writing that her efforts "will be one of the major forces shaping the Democrats' general-election fight against Donald Trump",[1] and Politico referred to her as "one of the Democratic Party's most in-demand leaders this cycle".[13] McGowan has also received awards for her work on digital campaigns: she was recognized as a 2018 Rising Star by
Campaigns and Elections magazine,[9] and was listed as a "Name to know" by Politico.[14]
McGowan is married to Michael Halle, a political consultant who has worked as a lead organizer in Iowa for
Hillary Clinton and as a senior strategist for
Pete Buttigieg.[25][26] In the 2020 election cycle, McGowan supported Pete Buttigieg and opposed Bernie Sanders.[27][28]
Awards
Rising Star, Campaigns and Elections magazine (2018)[9]
^McGowan, Tara (October 29, 2021).
"Tara McGowan's quest to fight fake news". Politico (Interview). Interviewed by Fossett, Katelyn.
Archived from the original on October 18, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
^
abcC&E, ed. (July 25, 2018).
"2018 Rising Stars". Campaigns and Elections.
Archived from the original on October 18, 2022. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
^Jim Rutenberg; Matthew Rosenberg (March 30, 2020).
"Trump Won the Internet. Democrats Are Scrambling to Take It Back". The New York Times.
Archived from the original on September 13, 2021. Retrieved August 31, 2020. Another initiative went more smoothly, at least at first. It was called Acronym; among its backers were the Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin, Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Powell Jobs.