Copyright ©Onyx Communications 2024
Marvin Randolph, President and CEO of ONYX Communications, stands as a formidable leader in political strategy with over 35 years of experience orchestrating voter and organizing campaigns across more than 31 states. His tenure includes pivotal roles at the Democratic Party, NAACP, Service Employees International Union, Project Vote, and NAACP National Voter Fund, where he has championed the power of civic engagement and grassroots mobilization. Marvin's profound impact is highlighted by his leadership in managing over $17 million in Independent Expenditures (IEs) during the 2018 midterm elections, significantly influencing key political outcomes, including Stacey Abrams' notable Georgia Governor’s race.
Marvin's expertise extends beyond campaign management; he is also the founder of the Southern Elections Fund and an association of Black Political Consultants called Heroes for Hire. His strategic vision focuses on empowering the New American Majority, driving innovative electoral strategies that engage underrepresented communities. Marvin's dedication to transforming political landscapes is matched by his commitment to developing sustainable, community-focused initiatives that foster long-term political engagement and change. His leadership at ONYX Communications continues to redefine political advocacy, making significant strides toward inclusive and equitable representation in American politics.
Mac D'Alessandro is a political operative with a long history of developing and executing successful community and voter engagement programs starting when he was 12 years old and knocked on doors in his hometown Chicago for Mayor Harold Washington in 1982. Mac has designed and run field programs on behalf of coordinated or IE campaigns for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA), Sen. Edward Markey (MA), Sen. Joe Donnelly (IN), Secretary Mike Espy (MS), NARAL Pro-Choice America, All Above All, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the Coalition to Protect Mass Jobs/ Vote No on 3, and the Campaign to Save Our Public Schools.
Mac has over 20 years of experience in a wide range of issue and electoral campaigns at Greater Boston Legal Services, SEIU, NARAL and, since 2012, at Campaign Industries LLC. Mac has an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and a law degree from Boston College Law School.
Vince Murphy is a creative director and strategist with 20 years-experience creating key radio and digital content, UX/UI and digital experiences that have reached millions of people. From working with the Obama administration to imagine and brand experiences registering hundreds of thousands of voters through clever digital campaigns, he has spent his career working behind the scenes with mainstream artists, advocates, candidates, and nonprofits to help them express their missions and goals with powerful results.
Going into 2018, Vince joined the upstart political organization ACRONYM as the Creative Director, where he built a team of dynamic content creators, worked with organizations to realize the power of persuasive digital content, and imagined some of the most viral worthy creative moments of the year. His work has been featured in the New York Times, CNN and NPR among other media outlets. Other notable victories at ACRONYM under Vince's direction include Doug Jones, Alabama, Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania and several hard to win state legislature races across the country.
Cordelia Starkes is a Project Management Professional (PMP®) with a Masters in Non-Profit Management and extensive experience in creating opportunities and partnerships that result in growing skills within organizations that are game-changing. She has successfully managed Project Management Development Program for 300+ leaders and project managers across a broad array of organizations, including performance coaching, curriculum development, curriculum analysis, vendor management, program evaluation, and budget maintenance.
Cordelia directed the organization’s workforce development initiative to stand-up the infrastructure for a work-first model responsible for placing 1000 unemployed or underemployed clients of the Department of Social Services onto career paths that lead to economical sustainable positions. She has worked with national non-profit to create project management-based career services training, career counseling, job leads, and financial counseling to 11,000+ clients.
Tony Parker has run phone programs over the entire country, dialing millions of calls every cycle and working with hundreds of races. Their client list contains candidates from Presidential to Constable for over 40 years. Clients have included Clinton 92’ 96’, Gore 2000, Kerry 2004, Obama 2008 and 12’ and Biden 2016. Also, scores of US Senators including most recently Doug Jones (AL) 2017 and 2020 and working on the IE for Warnock and Ossoff (GA). The firm has called on behalf of hundreds of Congressional candidates and thousands of state and local candidates. Other experience includes extensive survey research having fielded and administered thousands of political surveys (from 100’s for Clinton down to state legislative races) and statistical analysis projects including voter dilution cases (38) and redistricting (over twenty from school board, city council and state house and senate).
Ben Jarecki has nearly three decades of experience supporting political campaigns, with a focus on phone programs ranging from automated messaging to live contact centers and text messaging. Ben and his team through a network of political consultants have worked with more than 500 campaigns, associations, companies across all 50 states. Collectively Ben has delivered over a billion phone message communications in his career and counting. Clients range from non-profit organizations, school boards and county campaigns to House, Senate, Governor and Presidential races. If your organization needs to communicate with members, constituents or voters Ben and his team have the experience you need. Ben lives in Omaha, NE with his wife Kim of 22 years and three children, Ethan (29), Sabrina (28) and Blake (20).
Douglas Fulmer has more than four decades of experience in politics, non-profit work and journalism. He began volunteering for political campaigns in 1972 at the age of 13 in his hometown of Akron, Ohio. After earning an MA from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University he worked for a variety of political firms and non-profit groups before joining Phil Noble Associates as a Senior Associate and Washington Representative.
Doug has worked with more than 350 campaigns, associations, companies and others in 34 states, providing, research, phone and advertising services. Political clients have included campaigns ranging from city council and county commission races to those for US Senate and Governorships. as well as national and statewide organizations. Fulmer has also earned a national reputation as a free-lance journalist, with more than 800 of his articles appearing in 31 newspapers, magazine and websites since 1990. He lives in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee with his wife Eng Chin and their daughter Marjorie.
As a seasoned political operative, working at senior levels over the past 12 years, Mehran Khodabandeh has been responsible for developing organizations and campaigns from the ground up for a variety of causes, specifically focusing on the empowerment of people of color and women. If you have a great message or cause and need help navigating complex political strategy while building a strong foundation of donors to fuel a campaign, Mehran is uniquely qualified to meet that need. Mehran has fundraised for candidates on various levels of the political arena ranging from local and state campaigns to federal elections. He earned his start in California's Bay Area where he contributed to the second half fundraising surge of Progressive Champion, Mike Honda, which was one of the closest watched elections in the 2014 cycle. His efforts and finance strategy lead the Honda campaign to outraising their opponent in the last three filing quarters, leading up to the election. He now focuses his work on representing and raising dollars for pprogressive candidates nationwide! To date Mehran has raised over 85 million dollars for campaigns and focuses on recruiting candidates of color, giving those campaigns the finance tools necessary to raise the resources you need to win. Mehran and his team have helped win elections in rural, urban, and suburban districts with a diverse group of candidates. Most importantly, Mehran and his team have experience in raising money in tough general battles, where major Democratic donors might be hedging their bets. His work is hyper focused on campaign-centric data, making sure that campaigns and clients he represents always have the most up-to-date information and projections. Mehran hopes to continue his commitment toward helping qualified candidate raise the resources they need to get their message out.
As a seasoned political operative, working at senior levels over the past 12 years, Mehran Khodabandeh has been responsible for developing organizations and campaigns from the ground up for a variety of causes, specifically focusing on the empowerment of people of color and women. If you have a great message or cause and need help navigating complex political strategy while building a strong foundation of donors to fuel a campaign, Mehran is uniquely qualified to meet that need. Mehran has fundraised for candidates on various levels of the political arena ranging from local and state campaigns to federal elections. He earned his start in California's Bay Area where he contributed to the second half fundraising surge of Progressive Champion, Mike Honda, which was one of the closest watched elections in the 2014 cycle. His efforts and finance strategy lead the Honda campaign to outraising their opponent in the last three filing quarters, leading up to the election. He now focuses his work on representing and raising dollars for pprogressive candidates nationwide! To date Mehran has raised over 85 million dollars for campaigns and focuses on recruiting candidates of color, giving those campaigns the finance tools necessary to raise the resources you need to win. Mehran and his team have helped win elections in rural, urban, and suburban districts with a diverse group of candidates. Most importantly, Mehran and his team have experience in raising money in tough general battles, where major Democratic donors might be hedging their bets. His work is hyper focused on campaign-centric data, making sure that campaigns and clients he represents always have the most up-to-date information and projections. Mehran hopes to continue his commitment toward helping qualified candidate raise the resources they need to get their message out.
Ucha Hanna Ndukwe is an experienced campaign manager, organizer, and leader in the movement to flip Georgia blue. She served as the GOTV Director in Georgia with the Biden coordinated campaign – a pivotal role in a race that ultimately came down to turnout. She also worked with Represent Georgia in the 2020 election cycle to recruit and train candidates who went on to appear on ballots across Georgia in November. In 2018, Ucha helped set the stage for the state’s historic flip as organizing director on Stacey Abrams’ campaign for governor, and later worked as the constituency program director for the Democratic Party of Georgia. Ucha has deep roots in labor organizing, including seven years working as an organizer and coordinator with the SEIU early in her career, and she recently served as political director on the 2020 Senate campaign of Sarah Riggs Amico, who centered labor issues in her platform. Ucha also worked as an early vote director in North Carolina with Hillary for America, ran a field team for Progressive Turnout Project in Georgia, and is the founder of Solidarity Nigeria, a nonprofit that works to develop and support Nigerian youth leaders. Ucha is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and holds a Master’s degree in political management from The George Washington University.
Irene Lin is an experienced strategic communications and government affairs professional who has managed campaigns for U.S. Senate, governor and Congress. She served as the State policy director for Obama for America in 2012 and served as a presidential appointee at U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development and Housing and Urban Development in Congressional affairs. She previously worked on Capitol Hill for Rep. Betty McCollum and the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee. She also worked for the National Family Farm Coalition.
Brian Bass is a battle tested political operative with more than a decade of experience building winning grassroots campaigns at the local, statewide and federal level. He started as a field organizer in 2007 for then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and has gone on to victories for Congressman Richard Neal, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and high-level campaign projects and issue advocacy organizations in 14 states across the country. He has been trusted to lead full scale field programs, robust GOTV operations, signature drives and voter registration programs. He helped build an operation in Minnesota that registered over 10,000 new voters in the heart of the Twin Cities. He also managed our canvassing program in Phoenix, AZ for the presidential election. His team successfully knocked over 100,000 doors, helping the Biden campaign become the first Democratic candidate for president to win AZ since 1996 and first to win Maricopa County in 72 years. He currently resides in Norwich, CT with his wife and two cats.
Kat Coffen is a proud native of Texas and attended the University of Houston studying political science and sociology. In 2008, Kat moved to Tennessee to work with the 101st Airborne Division as a Volunteer Therapy Coordinator to assist wounded active-duty service members to ensure they received care both on and off post. In 2012, she resumed her focus on politics as the Campaign Manager for a State House race in middle-Tennessee. Though the candidate was facing a long-standing incumbent, thorough analysis of the districts wants and needs as well as a comprehensive grass-roots mobilization of volunteers led to a victory and was the only seat in the body to flip from Red to Blue that year. In 2016 she served as the Tennessee State Director for Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign. Most recently she managed GOTV teams in both Nevada and Minnesota for Joe Biden’s successful Presidential campaign. Kat is a proud parent of one daughter and enjoys living an active lifestyle of boxing, hiking, and playing with her Pomeranian named Peanut.
Kamaria Gooding is a Spelman College graduate with a commitment to community and impactful initiatives. Kamaria began her journey with Campaign Industries on the Warnock and Stacey Abrams campaign, playing a crucial role as a part of the canvassing team. She began her work in community oriented projects as a dedicated urban youth counselor at Phillips Brooks House Academy for four summers where she provided guidance and fostered growth for young minds. Prior to relocating from Cambridge, MA, to Atlanta, GA, Kamaria and her team of fellow peer mediators received the 2016 Community Peacekeeper Award from the CDSC of Cambridge, MA. for their conflict resolution contributions. She later continued her commitment to community by volunteering at the Children’s Museum of Atlanta, creating engaging experiences for city children.As a member of the National Honors Society and the National Society of Leadership and Success, Kamaria consistently demonstrates commitment to personal and collective growth in various capacities.
Darrin Howel has served for many years as a senior political operative with 1199 SEIU-United Healthcare Workers-East, the nation’s largest and one of its most progressive and politically powerful labor unions. He has led a multi-county independent GOTV operation in support of former Congressman and Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy in Mississippi, as well as a successful voter registration campaign in Minneapolis, MN during the Uprising for Racial Justice and the Covid-19 pandemic. Darrin lives in Boston, MA where he ran for state representative and is the founder and volunteer leader of one of Boston’s largest holiday toy drive.
Shellie Jensen started her political career by working for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. She then served as a Jr. Legislative Aid to Del. Charley Barkley and as a Legislative Aid for Del. Herman Taylor. Later, she joined the office of Norman H. Conway, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the Maryland House of Delegates. In 2004, Shellie got married to a US Army soldier, and her focus shifted from politics to nonprofit work. During this period, she gained valuable experience advocating for military personnel, their spouses, and children. In 2008, Shellie became a founding member and director of membership for the newly formed organization Blue Star Families. While working with Blue Star Families, she sat on panels that led to the creation of the First Lady Michelle Obama's "Joining Forces" initiative. After 18 years as a military spouse and a mother of three, Shellie has returned to the political field. In 2021, she worked on the campaign of Rev. Warnock and Stacy Abrams in Savannah, GA. She organized a team that knocked on over 18,000 doors. When she's not doing field organizing, she volunteers at her children's school and coaches soccer.
Chelsea Norman has run effective programs in diverse communities throughout the country, including Gary, IN, the city with the 2nd highest percentage of Black residents in the U.S. She has also served as National Field Director for NARAL Pro-Choice America where she worked to educate and mobilize young people- particularly people of color and the LGBTQ community – around reproductive justice. She has served as a Field Director and Campaign Manager on dozens of winning campaigns, and she most recently ran a successful field effort for the DNC in Clark County, Nevada. Currently, she lives in Tennessee with her wife, Lauren, and their dog, Justice (RBG).
Opel Simmons is veteran, Democratic/ Progressive campaign operative with experience on the national, state, and local levels. His experience includes serving in key roles on multiple Presidential campaigns in addition to managing and/or consulting on several statewide races over the past 28 years; in most instances helping to develop, implement and execute field campaigns focused on robust direct voter contact strategies which engage, educate, energize, and mobilize communities of color to action at the ballot box and beyond. His value lies in his ability to cultivate and nurture long-term relationships within communities of color, elect qualified leaders, communicate clearly and effectively with varied constituencies with an assortment of interests, all while helping to facilitate meaningful, substantial change.
Jordan Brandt has over 15 years of campaign experience across three successful US Senate races, labor, and non profit sectors. Jordan’s unique set of skills around data and analytics allow us to boast a robust set of offerings we provide to clients, including but not limited to:
Erica Walters is a partner at CleanSweep Campaigns, a San Francisco-based direct mail, general consulting and online advertising firm serving Democrats and progressive causes nationally. Walters joined the firm in 1998 and has been a partner since 2003. She specializes in candidate work, ballot measures and independent expenditures. She has participated in over 350 winning campaigns in nearly every state and is proud to have helped win pro-choice, pro-family, pro-worker elections at every level from school board to the presidency.
She managed her first campaign at 19, a state legislative race in Connecticut, but received the bulk of her early political training in Montana working on caucus races, and managed numerous races around the country before moving to San Francisco. When not working, she enjoys hanging out with her stepsons, husband and two poorly behaved cats, as well as cooking, eating, boxing, traveling, hiking and playing mahjong.
With CleanSweep Campaigns and ONYX, you’re not just getting a field, phones, mail or digital firm – you’re getting a strategic partnership that is a team effort – not a group of consultants pushing and pulling for their share. When it comes to making decisions, we don’t believe it’s “our way or the highway.” We always have an opinion and we’re not shy about expressing it, but we truly believe that the input of the entire team to help think through your voter contact strategy from top to bottom. We’re known throughout the industry as a team-players because we are committed to working with every level of the organization to guarantee coherent campaign message delivery. The best media and strongest messages can be undermined by a lack of coordination with the entire campaign team, and working hand-in-hand, CleanSweep and ONYX can guarantee that won’t happen.
We believe the best-run campaigns makes our work better – and vice versa. That’s one of the many reasons that in a business famous for big egos, we are known as team players. And you get who you hire – at some firms, you get passed down to junior staffers, but at CleanSweep, you get partner level attention every day.
No one will work harder or devote more attention to your campaigns than us. We are a 30-person team and have the ability to accept as many campaigns and you need – we’re set up to handle much, much more volume in the even year and we don’t downsize in the odd year because we value the experience of our seasoned staff and want to keep them long-term. And when you hire a partner, you get a partner – on every race. CleanSweep is proud to be a partially woman-owned firm and partner Erica Walters would be working with your campaigns every day from now to Election Day. In addition to Erica, senior associate Cami Warnken, who is Latina, will be working on your caucus along with our in-house art and production teams.
Copyright ©Onyx Communications 2024