David Heller
David Heller
David Heller is one of the top political media consultants and campaign strategists in the Democratic Party. As president of Main Street Communications, Heller has compiled the best won-loss record among media consultants in the Democratic Party in terms of helping candidates win election to the U.S. Congress. Heller’s clients have won 10 out of 13 general election open seat races for Congress. Heller has specialized in winning in the South, having helped elect nine new Members of Congress from that region.
Over the years, Heller has helped elect or re-elect more than twenty-five different Members of Congress, including many from some of the nation’s most Republican-leaning districts. His statewide successes have included Gov. John Baldacci (D-Me.), Attorney Generals Marc Dann (D-Ohio) and Darrell McGraw (D-W.V.), Comptroller Louis Goldstein (D-Md.), Labor Commissioners Mike Thurmond (D-Ga.) and Dan Gardner (D-Ore.), and Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw (D-W.V.).
What makes Heller’s success unique is the ideological diversity of his clients. Heller has helped elect and re-elect more African-Americans to Congress than any media consultant in the country, including U.S. Reps. Frank Ballance (D-N.C.), Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), John Lewis (D-Ga.), David Scott (D-Ga.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Albert Wynn (D-Md.). Heller also helped elect Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) in a majority-Hispanic district. Additionally, Heller handles the media for the only two whites in Congress to represent majority-minority districts: Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.).
Heller has also helped elect many of the “Blue Dog” Democrats in Congress, the party’s most conservative voices, including the group’s co-founder, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.). Other Blue Dog clients have included U.S. Reps. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), Allen Boyd (D-Fla.), Virgil Goode (D-Va.), Ken Lucas (D-Ky.), Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.), and David Phelps (D-Ill.). From the far left to the right, Heller has helped elect and re-elect Democrats in many of the party’s toughest races.
Heller is best known for his creative TV and radio ads: Since 1992, he has won more than twice as many Pollie Awards (18) from his peers at the American Association of Political Consultants for his ads as any other Democratic media consultant. In 1996, Heller was named a “Rising Star in American Politics” by Campaigns & Elections magazine, and his TV ads are routinely featured in their “Best of” collections compiled at the end of each election cycle.
Heller also consults internationally; in 1997, he produced TV ads for the President of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, in his upset win over Serbian leader Slobodan Milosovic’s hand-picked choice.
David Heller, June Ryan and their son Dylan
Heller graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with honors from Brown University. He then won an overseas research scholarship and earned a Master’s Degree in Politics from Oxford University (Nuffield College). Heller went on to Yale University, where he spent a year writing his Master’s Thesis and teaching a seminar on political history. He continues to teach today, serving as a guest lecturer at American University and Towson State University.
An avid baseball fan, Heller is the owner of the Quad Cities River Bandits, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Single-A affiliate, and sits on the board of directors of the Midwest League. He is married to June Ryan, the former finance director of the Ohio Democratic Party. They have a two year-old, Dylan.