| Patrick Ruffini | |
| Party: | Republican |
| Education: | University of Pennsylvania (BA) |
Patrick Ruffini[1] is a Republican Party pollster and political strategist in the United States.[2] He founded Engage, LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based political media firm, and now runs the political research and intelligence firm, Echelon Insights[3]
Ruffini grew up in France, Italy, and Greenwich, Connecticut, and graduated high school in 1996 from Greenwich High School.[4] [5] He is a 2000 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and currently resides in the Washington, D.C. suburbs.[1] [6]
Ruffini began blogging in 2001, and has been a front-page contributor for RedState and Townhall.com. In the 2004 election, Ruffini served as webmaster for the Bush-Cheney campaign. Following the 2008 election, Ruffini co-authored the Rebuild the Party platform for Republican renewal.[7]
From 2005 to 2007, Ruffini served as eCampaign Director at the Republican National Committee (RNC).[8]
In 2007, Ruffini founded Engage, LLC, a political media firm.[9]
In 2008, he co-founded The Next Right, a forum for the youth conservative movement. Reihan Salam wrote in Atlantic in 2008 that Ruffini "looks poised to become one of the most influential Republican political strategists of his generation."[10] He has authored a monthly "Digital Democracy" column for Townhall magazine, written for National Review, and appeared as a political analyst on Fox News Channel and C-SPAN's Washington Journal. Ruffini's analysis of emerging political trends has also appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, PBS MediaShift, and Newsweek.[11]
In 2009, Ruffini and Engage helped develop the online political strategy for the Bob McDonnell campaign, who won the 2009 Virginia gubernatorial election.[12] In 2010, Ruffini assisted on the Senate campaign of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election.[13] [14]
In 2013, he was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage in the United States during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.[15]