National Politics Team
Led by veteran journalists in Washington and in key states around the country, the AP national politics team endeavors to break news while providing clarity and crucial context. Its members boast an impressive record of exclusive reports, accuracy and accountability journalism.
Meet the team:
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Steven Sloan oversees coverage of politics, elections and democracy as deputy Washington bureau chief. He joined AP from CNN, where he was most recently the director of enterprise reporting at the Washington bureau. Sloan previously was managing editor for content at CNN Politics, overseeing all in-depth political enterprise coverage and breaking news, and worked as congressional editor at Politico and a reporter at Bloomberg News. |
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Michael Tackett oversees the White House and Congress teams as deputy Washington bureau chief. He joined AP from The New York Times, where he worked as a political reporter and deputy Washington editor. Tackett previously served as Bloomberg News' managing editor and Washington bureau chief, and Washington bureau chief and political writer at the Chicago Tribune. He has covered six presidential campaigns. |
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Bill Barrow is a national politics reporter based in Atlanta, focused on the Democratic Party. He covers national political trends with special attention to a 13-state region that extends from Maryland to Louisiana. Before joining AP, Barrow covered politics for newspapers in Alabama and Louisiana. |
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Thomas Beaumont covers national politics from the Midwest, with a focus on U.S. Senate races in battleground states. In 2016 he covered former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Beaumont, based in Iowa, joined the AP in 2011 after working as The Des Moines Register’s chief political reporter. |
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Sara Burnett covers Midwest politics from her base in Chicago. Since joining AP in 2012, she has covered politics in Illinois and the central U.S. She previously reported for The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, where she covered the 2008 Democratic National Convention and presidential elections in the battleground state of Colorado, as well as the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago. |
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Meg Kinnard is a politics reporter based in South Carolina. In 2016, she covered every Republican and Democratic candidate and briefly traveled with the Sanders and Rubio campaigns. Kinnard has covered state and national politics, crime, and breaking news over her nearly 15-year career with the AP. She previously covered the 2004 Republican and Democratic national conventions for National Journal.
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Stephen Ohlemacher is the election decision editor, managing a team of analysts that declares the winner in nearly every U.S. election. During presidential primaries, he oversees the AP delegate count, the gold standard for tracking presidential nominating contents. Ohlemacher spent nine years covering Congress for AP, writing about economic issues with a focus on tax policy and Social Security.
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Steve Peoples is AP's chief political writer. Based in New York, Peoples leads AP's coverage of the 2020 presidential campaign. He has covered politics for more than a decade and spent much of the 2016 election cycle focused on the national Republican Party. Peoples traveled with Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012. |
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Michelle L. Price focuses on Nevada politics from her base in Las Vegas. Before moving to Nevada, she worked for the AP in Arizona and spent five years in Utah as the AP’s statehouse reporter, covering the outset of Mitt Romney’s U.S. Senate campaign, the 2016 presidential election and the hidden ways lobbyists cozied up to state lawmakers. |
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Nicholas Riccardi is a political reporter in the U.S. West covering the electorate and AP VoteCast. He covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns from Denver. He is a former national reporter for the Los Angeles Times. |
Jonathan J. Cooper is a politics reporter based in Phoenix. He has covered campaigns and state government from bases in Arizona, Oregon and California since joining the AP in 2009. He covered John McCain’s toughest Senate race during the 2010 tea party wave, Gavin Newsom’s election as California governor and the emergence of Arizona as a swing state during the Trump era. He has also extensively covered California’s most destructive wildfires. | |
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Brian Slodysko covers money and politics from Washington. Previously he delivered a steady stream of scoops from AP's Indianapolis bureau, including during the 2018 midterm elections, and he contributed to AP's campaign finance coverage. Before joining AP, Slodysko worked at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. |
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Emily Swanson is AP’s director of public opinion research. A member of the AP polling unit in Washington since 2014, she designs survey questionnaires, analyzes polling data and writes about public opinion. Swanson previously worked in survey research for Pollster.com and the Huffington Post. |
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Will Weissert is a Washington-based political reporter covering the 2020 presidential campaign with a focus on immigration. He previously covered Texas state politics — including the 2018 Senate race between Sen. Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke — from Austin. Weissert has a focus on O’Rourke’s presidential campaign, policy and immigration. |
Covering Congress: |
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Dustin Weaver is AP's congressional editor, overseeing coverage of Capitol Hill. Weaver joined AP from The Hill, where he directed the paper’s print and digital coverage of Congress, the White House and other Washington beats. He previously served as The Hill’s business and lobbying editor and has held editing positions at The Washington Post Express and The Washington Examiner. |
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Lisa Mascaro is AP’s chief congressional correspondent, leading coverage of Capitol Hill. She spearheads reporting on all facets of Congress, including legislative maneuvering, elections and the relationship between party leaders and the White House. Prior to joining AP, Mascaro spent eight years covering Congress and presidential politics for the Los Angeles Times. |
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Matthew Daly is a congressional reporter with a focus on energy, environment, politics, and more. An 18-year veteran of the AP, Daly is a former chairman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents at the U.S. Capitol and a former AP White House reporter. Before joining the national staff, Daly was the AP's Washington correspondent for the Pacific Northwest. |
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Alan Fram has covered Congress for AP since 1987, specializing in budget and spending issues. He has reported on battles over guns, health care and immigration, as well as numerous congressional campaigns, with his most notable election night coming in 2000. A native New Yorker, Fram joined AP in Newark, New Jersey, in 1981. |
Covering the White House: |
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Nancy Benac is White House news editor, overseeing AP’s coverage of the Trump administration. She has reported on government and politics in Washington for more than three decades, covering a wide variety of beats, including the Clinton White House. Benac served as political editor for three national election cycles. |
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Jill Colvin covers the White House with a focus on immigration, environmental and climate issues. She traveled with Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign and previously was a New Jersey-based national politics reporter. Prior to AP, Colvin spent three years in New York as a City Hall reporter for DNAinfo.com and was a political reporter at the New York Observer. |
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Kevin Freking has been with AP since 2005, covering health and veterans issues, California politics, Congress and now the White House. He continues to closely track trade and tariffs issues. On the Hill, he covered a variety of topics, including judicial nominations, ethics and Dodd-Frank repeal efforts. Prior to joining AP, Freking was Washington correspondent for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. |
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Aamer Madhani is a White House reporter covering President Donald Trump's reelection campaign. Prior to joining AP in 2019, he was a longtime correspondent for USA Today, where he had served as White House correspondent and Baghdad bureau chief. Most recently, Madhani was USA Today’s Chicago-based national correspondent, covering the 2020 presidential campaign, policing in America, prisons, mass shootings and natural disasters. |
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Zeke Miller is a White House reporter covering President Donald Trump's reelection campaign. He joined AP in 2017 after covering the White House, national politics and the 2016 presidential campaign for TIME, and previously was the first White House correspondent for Buzzfeed. Miller is currently the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. |
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Deb Riechmann is a White House reporter focused on national security. An AP veteran of over three decades, she has covered foreign policy, intelligence, the Clinton and Bush presidencies, the release of the Nixon tapes and JFK autopsy documents, and more. Riechmann spent three years in Afghanistan at AP's Kabul bureau and has worked in Cairo.
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Darlene Superville has covered the White House, with a focus on first lady Melania Trump and former first lady Michelle Obama, since 2009. She was a lead editor on the national political desk for the 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, and covered GOP presidential and vice presidential candidates in 1996 and, later, Congress. |
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Book an AP journalist
Members of AP's national politics team are available for media interviews. Please send requests to mediarelations@ap.org.