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A busy week in Washington leading up to summer recess included the House passing the GENIUS Act, the rescissions package and the precedent it sets and the ongoing Epstein files story.
Kristen Hawn, ROKK Partner and Democratic strategist, joined Bloomberg’s Balance of Power to share her thoughts on these stories and where we are seeing bipartisanship.
Ron Bonjean, ROKK Co-Founder and Republican strategist, joined SiriusXM’s The Julie Mason Show to discuss a major news week. The largest of these stories was The Wall Street Journal’s unearthing of a letter from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, bringing fresh speculation around Trump’s relationship with Epstein. They also discussed Republicans’ messaging strategy for the “Big Beautiful Bill” and uncertainty around 2026 midterm predictions. Listen to his full interview with Julie Mason here.
ROKK Solutions won a Platinum Award for our work with the National Children’s Alliance in the Digital Advertising Campaign category. Another ROKK client program was an honorable mention in the Digital Marketing & Communication Campaigns category.
The dotCOMM Awards are administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) and celebrate the evolving digital landscape. The winners reflect the best in public relations, advertising and digital strategy, driving engagement, awareness and results.
Celebrating our tenth anniversary this year, we continue to receive accolades from across the country, including being named as one of PRovoke Media’s 80 Best Agencies in the U.S. and was selected as a finalist for PRovoke Media’s “Best of the Best.” The firm also won two Viddy Awards and Reed Award for Strategic Communications Team of the Year.
Interested in working with our award winning team? Reach out.
The Democratic Party’s credibility with voters has plummeted since the 2024 election, according to a poll conducted by Unite the Country, a Democratic super PAC. The poll showed voters perceived the Democratic Party as “out of touch,” “woke” and “weak,”raising alarm bells as the party looks to rebuild ahead of the midterms and next presidential election.
ROKK Co-Founder and Partner Rodell Mollineau, who also serves as a senior advisor to Unite the Country, shared his thoughts on the poll’s insights with The Hill.
There’s a peculiar sense of peace and quiet that settles over Capitol Hill in August. The halls that are otherwise filled with the clatter of heels and distant voices seem to settle, the constant drop-ins by lobbyists and visitors slow to a near halt and the hearing rooms that routinely buzz with urgency sit in silence. To an outsider, it might seem like Washington has shut down.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
August recess is a time when lawmakers return to their districts and reconnect with constituents, visit local businesses, hold town halls and prepare for the sprint that awaits when they return to D.C. For businesses, advocacy groups and trade associations, this time presents a unique opportunity to strategically engage without competing with the chaos of the legislative calendar. Whether the goal is to build relationships, shape public narratives or lay the groundwork for fall priorities, August offers a rare window to make meaningful progress quietly and effectively.
Here are eight high-ROI strategies to take advantage of this time.
Invite your member of Congress or their staff for a tour of your facility, product launch or community event in their district. These types of engagements give lawmakers direct insight into your work and helps connect legislation to the people and places it impacts most. This approach is a win-win because it provides time to discuss your work and priorities, while also allowing the representative to engage with local business and constituents directly.
Fewer headlines from Washington in August means more room for yours. Draft an opinion piece tied to your policy priorities or a timely news hook and aim to publish in local or regional outlets your elected officials are likely to read. Bonus points if you mention the lawmaker in the piece, as staffers keep a close eye on local clips–especially when their boss is mentioned.
Instead of chasing the legislative calendar to catch a member in D.C., August offers a rare chance to reach them and their staff when they’re most accessible and focused on local engagement. Whether through short-form video, paid social content or display ads, this time is ideal for a light but effective digital push.
If you want to ensure lawmaker attendance and visibility for your organization, consider sponsoring an event where that member is likely already participating. Whether it’s your local festival, chamber of commerce event or nonprofit meeting, doing this is cost-effective and high-impact, putting your organization in front of the right audiences.
Convene a conversation that includes employees, local leaders and members of the community about a shared challenge, priority or opportunity, and invite your representative or their staff to listen in.
Connect with local stakeholders and those affected by your work and encourage them to provide short testimonials. Whether in the form of videos or written content, these can later be used for advocacy, social media posts or even during lobbying meetings.
August is the perfect time to partner with local nonprofits and strengthen your social impact work. Consider aligning with causes that reflect shared values with your representative. Topics like economic development, support for veterans, workforce investment or small business empowerment not only resonate among lawmakers but also with the community. Leverage these opportunities to create a surround sound that travels locally and is amplified back to D.C.
While others hit pause, sharpen your strategy. Use this time to refine messaging, update your advocacy materials and provide additional training opportunities for your staff. Come September, all the groundwork you laid during this time will allow you to hit the ground running.
If you’ve spent time on Capitol Hill, you know that when Congress gavels back after Labor Day, everything returns to the usual fast pace that leaves many scrambling for time. That’s why August matters. It’s a chance to lay the foundation before the noise returns.
Make sure you take advantage of it.
President Trump muscled a 900-page package through a closely divided Congress—and that might have been the easy part.
The tax and policy bill, which Trump dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” encompasses much of his second-term agenda. Trump managed to sign it by his own Fourth of July deadline.
Ron Bonjean, ROKK Partner and Co-Founder, shared his thoughts with NPR on Trump’s continuous uphill battle of promoting the bill’s benefits.
As Congress works to pass President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” the public feud between Elon Musk and Trump has resurfaced. Musk, the world’s richest man, stated that he will back primary challengers against any Republicans who support Trump’s megabill.
ROKK Partner and Republican strategist Ron Bonjean shared his thoughts on the feud and what it means for the Republican Party in The Hill.
The hardest tasks are often the most important. Now more than ever, it’s difficult for companies to take a stand on public policy topics. But, just because something’s hard doesn’t mean it’s unnecessary.
Congress is working to pass a major tax and policy bill. It will have major implications for companies large and small. Organizations need a way to find themselves a seat at the table, lest they end up on the menu instead.
One strategy for this is the development of an industry coalition, which works in concert with other persuasive tools and membership organizations to achieve a common goal. By offering companies an alternate route to pursue their policy goals, industry coalitions are an effective way to navigate volatile political headwinds and ensure successful advocacy efforts.
Coalitions are risk mitigators.
By enveloping your policy initiatives and key messages within a broad, diverse group of organizations and value chain stakeholders, it is harder for opposing interest groups to attack one member. This approach allows organizations to protect their customer-facing brands and reputations.
On top of this, highly targeted industry coalitions are force multipliers.
By standing up a diverse coalition, corporations can harness the power of partner companies, trade associations and local organizations to get their message across. Leveraging existing relationships allows organizations to increase the strength and reach of their message–making it markedly easier to achieve policy goals. Additionally, it shows how no company is on its own; our complicated economy relies on a combination of partners up and down the value and supply chains. Showing how a particular policy will impact several segments of the economy is preferable to having a one sector targeted impact.
Given these benefits, it’s no surprise that more and more companies are turning to coalitions as a strategic way to further their advocacy interests.
However, standing up a coalition to achieve your goals isn’t as easy as planning a series of Zoom calls. To raise your chance of success, it’s important to set up a viable framework.
While having broad types of members on your coalition roster will strengthen its effectiveness, broad messaging will do the exact opposite. The best coalitions focus on clear, narrow advocacy goals and support these efforts with a few carefully tailored, concise messages.
This is the most important ingredient for success in any industry coalition.
A to-the-point message, delivered repeatedly and to the right audience, increases receptiveness among both lawmakers and the public. With that awareness, you bring your preferred response to an issue towards agreement, one step away from the ultimate goal of adoption.
Additionally, discipline increases coalition recruitment, retention and internal cohesion. A carefully tailored approach will put member companies at ease by reducing message creep, which could potentially expose members to advocating for objectives they didn’t sign up for.
Planning a weekend get away with a few friends is hard enough. Now, imagine trying to coordinate a singular, sustained advocacy effort among Fortune 500 companies, trade associations and local organizations.
As a team with deep experience cultivating coalitions, we know standing up a new group is no small feat done overnight, and no two are the exact same. But having clear, coordinated internal and external communications managed by one entity is something that all effective industry groups will have in common.
Coalitions require clear procedures for identifying policy priorities, message creation, stakeholder outreach, external communication and internal coordination. To deal with these tasks and many more, a designated coalition leader is essential.
To ensure your coalition is in prime position to achieve its policy goals, we recommend hiring an outsider to manage your coalition. Rather than stretching any existing employees too thin by adding additional work to their remit, a dedicated, reliable third party is sure to have the hours required and expertise needed to spearhead advocacy efforts. This also avoids any potential for real or perceived favoritism when it comes to strategy or messaging.
The bipartisan team at ROKK Solutions has successfully assembled and managed coalitions across a variety of policy priorities. Get in touch with our team to see how we can help you achieve your public policy goals.
Following the U.S. bombing in Iran, Washington has been reacting to the lack of congressional oversight and whether the strike advanced the U.S.’s goals to set back Iran’s nuclear program. ROKK Partner, Kristen Hawn, joined Bloomberg’s Balance of Power to discuss this and other headlines this week. Listen to Balance of Power Late Edition here.
ROKK Partner, Ron Bonjean, joined The Julie Mason Show to discuss the recent bombings in Iran and Congress’ involvement, the status of the “big beautiful bill” that is currently in the Senate, the midterms in Texas and other headlines this week. Listen to the interview here.