Reaching beyond the base
UNC Hussman alumna Jessica Porter ’17, now serving as the digital director for Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, previously led grassroots fundraising efforts for President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Porter’s talk will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the 107-day Harris-Walz campaign.
This event is made possible by the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life.
About Jessica Porter
Jessica Porter is an experienced political and digital strategist with a track record of driving large-scale grassroots engagement and fundraising efforts online. She currently serves as digital director for Governor Wes Moore of Maryland.
Porter was the second staffer on payroll for President Biden’s re-election campaign in 2023 – rebuilding the President’s grassroots fundraising program from the ground up. Her work laid the strong foundation for Vice President Harris’s eventual run, ultimately raising $1.4 billion for the campaign in just three months. Porter’s strategic leadership of her over 50-person team enabled teams to execute major fundraising moments across over eight different fundraising verticals – digital ads, direct mail, donor cultivation, emails, texting, partnerships, the webstore and the website.
Prior to serving on the presidential campaign, Porter worked at the Democratic National Committee for five years. At the committee, she managed a multifunctional fundraising team that raised $53 million during the 2022 midterms alone. During the 2020 election, Porter oversaw the email fundraising for the DNC and SMS fundraising team for Biden for President – raising over $250 million in just five months.
Prior to her work with the DNC, Porter helped optimize digital strategies for clients like Heifer International and Special Olympics. She credits her political start to the valuable experience she gained as a fellow on Governor Roy Cooper’s race and an intern in Rep. David Price’s Congressional office while she was an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill.
A native of central Florida, Porter is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2017.