When Kristin Davison was growing up in the Back Mountain, becoming a political consultant was not one of her goals.
“Actually, I think I wanted to be a ballerina,” she recalled with a laugh.
But dreams change, and Davison, daughter of attorney Robert and Annamarie Davison of Dallas, developed an interest in politics that eventually led to her working as Chief of Staff for Karl Rove and Co., and serving as Deputy Surrogate Director on Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Senior Advisor to Senator Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) winning 2016 reelection campaign.
Recognizing she’s good at what she does, the American Association of Political Consultants recently honored Davison, 32, with its 2019 Forty Under Forty Award.
“It’s a bipartisan group, not just Republicans or Democrats, but Independents as well,” Davison said, adding she felt “a little uncomfortable to be recognized. I like to stay in the background, but it’s very nice for your colleagues to recognize that what you’re doing is good work.”
Since March she’s been “having a blast working with a rock star team” at the consulting firm Axiom Strategies in Washington, D.C., and meeting with people all over the country “to see if they want to run, and how I can help.”
“We’ll see what the cycle brings and what race I might be working on.”
“For young people who want to get involved and maybe consider politics for a career,” she wrote in an email, “my biggest and most important piece of advice is to work for causes and candidates they believe in, find a good mentor and hold tight to whatever strong support they have. There’s no way I could be where I am now without my family — they’ve supported and encouraged me with every campaign twist and turn.”
“And I am lucky to have learned and continue to learn from political mentors like Karl Rove, the former Deputy Chief if Staff to President George W. Bush, and Jeff Roe, the former campaign manager to presidential candidate Ted Cruz,” she wrote.
After graduating from the former Bishop Hoban High School in Wilkes-Barre, Davison studied political science at Catholic University and spent a semester in England working for Richard Bacon, a member of the British House of Commons.
She credits her time working as Karl Rove and Co.’s Chief of Staff with providing the foundation of her education. As her online biography explains, “there she was involved in polling, data, messaging, and strategy for statewide, national, and international campaigns, political groups, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal. She also led the research, editing, and marketing of former Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove’s, two best-selling books, ‘Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight’ and ‘The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters’.”
