NPR: Billionaire Charles Koch Throws His Support to GOP Presidential Hopeful Nikki Haley

According to polls, the GOP race for 2024 continues to show former President Donald Trump as the consistent favorite. Now, with just under seven weeks until the first contest of the GOP primary season, billionaire Republican donor Charles Koch is looking to change that. Koch’s political network, Americans for Prosperity Action, is throwing its weight behind former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who’s been steadily rising in popularity among Republicans.

ROKK Co-Founder and Partner Ron Bonjean shared his insights with NPR Morning Edition host A Martinez. Listen to the full conversation here.

A group of self-styled political independents filed paperwork with the FEC this week to launch a new Super PAC aimed at swinging independent voters to support former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in her bid to secure the Republican presidential nomination.

Led by five entrepreneurs — including Jonathan Bush, the cousin of former President George W. Bush, and billionaire CEO Frank Laukien — the PAC, called Independents Moving the Needle, says it will focus its efforts on New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary. 

Jeff Grappone, EVP at ROKK Solutions and veteran Republican strategist in New Hampshire, shared his insights with ABC News on the importance of winning over independent voters during the New Hampshire primary. Read the full article here. 

ROKK Solutions is thrilled to announce that we’ve been awarded a Gold Viddy Award in the virtual reality category for our work with Southern Company. 

As the premier international competition honoring video excellence in a digital world, the competition draws over 2,500 entries from the United States, Canada, and 22 other countries. Judges for the Viddy Awards are industry professionals who look for companies and individuals whose talent exceeds a high standard of excellence and whose work serves as a benchmark for the industry. Approximately 23 percent of entries received the Platinum award, 22 percent won Gold and approximately 10 percent were Honorable Mention winners.

ABOUT THE VIDDY AWARDS

The Viddy Awards is an international competition honoring video excellence in a digital world. Viddy traces its roots to 1994 when it was known as the Videographer Awards. The ​​Viddy Awards is administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), which is the international organization that oversees awards and recognition programs and honors outstanding achievement and service to the profession.

The House this year has been mired in chaos, punctuated by a 15-round speakership vote, an eight-person regicide, flirtations with government shutdowns and policy stagnations. Next year’s elections could determine if the Senate follows suit.

Rabble-rousing Republicans are running for a handful of Senate seats, including Kari Lake in Arizona, Alex Mooney in West Virginia, Jim Marchant in Nevada, James Craig in Michigan and more. Meanwhile, dealmakers like Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Mitt Romney, R-Utah, are retiring.

That means the normally staid Senate could become more like the often chaotic House, injecting further drama into Congress, if several big-name Republicans win their elections next year. 

John LaBombard, SVP at ROKK Solutions and former top aide to Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., shared his insights with ABC News on whether the House’s lack of decorum will make its way into the Senate. Read the full article here. 

For four consecutive years, ROKK Solutions has been named to PRNEWS’ Agency Elite Top 100 list. This is the industry’s most comprehensive guide of the top innovative PR, marketing and communications firms in the business.

Since being named to the list last year, ROKK has grown its capabilities including:

• Nearly 50 ROKKstars through strategic bipartisan hires from Capitol Hill and top agency talent.
• Corporate communications services backed by public affairs experience.
• New Crisis Concierge service offering where a crisis communications team is ready 24/7 to respond and act as an extension of your organization.
• Award-winning research on major issues impacting organizations such as ESG, DEI and corporate wokeism.
• New RADIUS offering, a suite of unique data programs designed to help clients create and drive the most effective communications campaigns.
• Expanded our 360-degree integrated suite of strategic communications capabilities to include multilingual capabilities.
• Numerous awards recognitions by our peers for our creative and digital work.

We believe that our continued success lies in the strength of our growing team and agency culture, a cornerstone of which is diversity of thought and experience. We’re thrilled to be included on this prestigious list for four years (and counting!).

For the complete list of agencies, please see the full guide.

While Ramaswamy is packing his schedule with stops across Iowa, including multiple events on Tuesday and Wednesday, he has failed to move up in the 2024 Republican primary race and is increasingly at risk of becoming an afterthought. He is polling in the mid to high single digits and has left critics asking what his endgame is or if he is staying in the race only to boost former President Donald Trump.

After an earlier flurry of attention, the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur and first-time political candidate is gaining more notice over his debate provocations than for signs that his campaign is resonating with voters.

ROKK Co-Founder and GOP strategist Ron Bonjean spoke to The Associated Press about Ramaswamy’s position in the Republican presidential candidate field. Read the full article here.

Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) planned exit from the Senate is delivering a blow to the eroding dealmaking sector of the upper chamber, as compromise becomes devalued and partisanship wins out at the ballot box. 

The West Virginia centrist has played among the most prominent roles in numerous bipartisan legislative efforts, including President Biden’s signature infrastructure law in 2021, negotiations on firearm background checks and on energy policy. 

John LaBombard, SVP at ROKK Solutions and former top aide to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), shared his insights with The Hill about what departures by senators like Manchin means for bipartisanship moving forward. Read the full article here. 

The dwindling number of 2024 GOP primary candidates is raising fresh questions about the race as the Iowa caucuses fast approach.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) announced Sunday he was suspending his campaign, marking the latest exit from the field as the race to beat former President Trump increasingly looks like a match-up between former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

ROKK Co-Founder and Partner, Ron Bonjean spoke to The Hill about why Scott wasn’t getting enough traction to stay in the race.

On Wednesday, November 8, 2023, ROKK Solutions participated in the PRovoke Media’s 12th annual Global Public Relations Summit as a silver sponsor. ROKK’s Co-Founder and Partner Rodell Mollineau sat down with PRovoke’s Founder and Chair Paul Holmes and POLITICO’s Megan R. Wilson to discuss how companies can navigate the partisan divide in Washington. 

Read more about the conversation here.

The DeSantis campaign recently posted a thread of more than two dozen clumsy or confusing remarks by former president Donald Trump, positing that “this is why his handlers won’t let him debate.”

As Trump’s Republican rivals face growing pressure to stop his momentum, while Democrats seek to neutralize concerns about Biden’s age, the two sides are converging on a common argument — that Trump’s cognition has declined too far for him to lead the country again.

ROKK Co-Founder and advisor for the pro-Biden super PAC Unite the Country, Rodell Mollineau spoke with The Washington Post on how those covering this election season should react to Trump’s improvisational speeches and rallies.