Dave Tollaksen
Dave has worked for over 20 years to help Democratic campaigns and progressive causes succeed at the ballot box. In 2024, Dave helped Jared Golden (ME-2) win re-election in one of the most pro-Trump districts in the country and in 2022 helped Seth Magaziner (RI-2) win election to Congress in one of the first major upsets of the night.
A native of Wisconsin, he is particularly proud of being a part of Tony Evers’ team to defeat Governor Scott Walker in what The Washington Post called “potentially the greatest victory in the midterms.”
Dave has helped the California Teachers Association and its allies turn back a $60 million effort by anti-education forces to elect its pro-education candidates for governor and superintendent of public instruction, worked with the DSCC IE re-elect Senator Jon Tester in a state Trump won by over 20 points, helped Dan Kildee win re-election in MI-8, and assisted Senator Maria Cantwell’s re-election effort.
Dave has also helped win some of the toughest initiative campaigns in the country, including helping California’s Native American Tribes defend their tribal sovereignty and defeat California Proposition 27, helped pass Question 7 in the most expensive campaign ever waged in Maryland, the first tax increase in California in over 30 years, and helped pass background checks in Nevada.
Dave has conducted hundreds of groups on topics from politics to homelessness, poverty, health care, clean energy, the environment, the economy, civil rights, nutrition, and education, among others, in the United States as well as in Colombia, Romania, Israel, and South Africa.
Dave graduated from The University of Notre Dame with a degree in economics and political science with a focus on applied quantitative methodology. He uses any excuse he can find to make it back to the Midwest to play golf or watch the Brew Crew or Fighting Irish.