Stephanie Schriock, born in 1973, was raised in the mining town of Butte, Montana. She graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 1995 with a B.S. in Public Administration and then graduated from the George Washington University in 1998 with her M.A. in Political Management. While in graduate school, Stephanie worked as the Finance Director for both Mary Rieder for Congress (1996) and the South Carolina Democratic Party (1997-1998), while also working as Campaign Manager for the Bill Luther for Congress campaign.
Beginning in March 1999, Stephanie started working for the DSCC as the Southern Regional Finance Director), and in 2001, she became the Director of Campaign Assistance – a position she held until 2002 when she left to work as the Finance Director for the Dean for America presidential campaign, where she was at the center of the team that created the online fundraising model that ushered in the era of digital fundraising, laying the groundwork for President Barack Obama’s and Secretary Hillary Clinton’s future presidential campaigns.
In June 2006, Stephanie returned to Montana to work as the Campaign Manager for Jon Tester’s Senatorial race, for whom, post-election (and after helping the Democrats take back the Senate), she became Chief of Staff. In 2008, she joined Al Franken’s Senate campaign as the Campaign Manager, leading the campaign to Election Day and then solidifying her reputation as a major force in Democratic politics by successfully managing the eight-month recount and legal fight that followed.
In February 2010, Stephanie became the President of EMILY’s List, where, under Stephanie’s leadership, EMILY’s List saw unprecedented growth, helped elect a record number of women to the House and Senate, and recruited and trained thousands of pro-choice Democratic women to run for office. Of the more than $600 million the organization has raised to support women candidates since its founding in 1985, more than half has been raised under Stephanie’s leadership. At the start of the 2018 election cycle, Stephanie promised Nancy Pelosi that EMILY’s List women would take back the majority in the U.S. House for Democrats. She kept that promise, with EMILY’s List women alone flipping more than enough districts to secure the Democratic majority. Today, thanks to the women EMILY’s List helped elect, there are more women serving in Congress than ever before and Congress is more diverse than ever before.
She has been called “one of the absolute stars of American politics now,” and has also been named by ELLE Magazine to its “10 Most Powerful Women in Washington” list.
