Katie Merrill

Founder & President

Katie Merrill is the founder and president of The Merrill Strategy Group, a California-based political consulting firm.  Over the course of her 25-year career, Merrill has advised Democratic campaigns for President, Governor, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, state legislative candidates and statewide initiative campaigns, Democratic organizations and environmental, labor, and other public advocacy groups.  Her work has included overseeing and implementing all aspects of campaign strategy, including research and message development, press relations, direct mail, online communications and organizing, event production, political and field organizing, and television, radio, and online advertising strategy and development.
 
Merrill has worked on over a dozen statewide campaigns in California.  She served as general consultant for Vote Yes on Proposition 35, Stop Human Trafficking in California, which won the highest vote share of any statewide ballot initiative in California history. Merrill oversaw the successful statewide field campaign against Proposition 23, the Dirty Energy initiative, and for Yes on 39, Close the Loophole, working with billionaire-turned-activist Tom Steyer. She was a senior strategist for Eleni Kounalakis's successful bid for Lt. Governor and Controller Betty Yee's re-election in 2018.  In 2000, Merrill ran the day-to-day statewide campaign as the California Director for Bill Bradley for President and, while working at Kaufman Campaign Consultants, she played a key role in the successful No on 38/No on School Vouchers initiative campaign in California in 2000. 

Merrill managed former Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher's first campaign in 1996, winning a dramatic upset over a Republican incumbent.  After the campaign, she joined Congresswoman Tauscher on Capitol Hill as her Chief of Staff, managing her Washington and California operations until 1999.

Merrill began her career as a grassroots organizer for Senator Boxer's groundbreaking U.S. Senate campaign in 1992.  She is a graduate of Amherst College and lives near Berkeley, California.