Ben Nuckels
Ben Nuckels is one of the founding partners of Nuckels Media Partners. Ben brings extensive experience in message development, ad making, voter targeting, digital communication, and media strategy. He is a veteran of local, state, national, and international campaigns.
AdWeek described Nuckels’ work as, “emotional” and “tugs at the heartstrings.” Huffington Post labeled some of his work, “provocative.”Other news outlets labeled his work as “splashy,” “smoothly produced,” “memorable,” and “dominating national headlines.”
His work earned more AAPC Pollie Awards for Advertising Excellence than any other firm in America for two out of the last three years (’22, ‘24), and Nuckels has received a total of 53 Pollie Awards.
Nuckels was the media consultant for Tony Evers for Governor of Wisconsin in 2018. The Washington Post named Evers’ stunning victory over Scott Walker “potentially the greatest Democratic victory of the midterms.” He reprised his role in 2022 for Evers’ successful re-election effort that one news outlet pointed out defied history. POLITICO noted Evers was, “the first Democratic governor since 1962 to win in Wisconsin in a midterm election with a Democratic president.” A year later, he helped elect Justice Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That campaign flipped the court to progressive from conservative in what the New York Times dubbed “the most important election of 2023.”
Nuckels has been a trusted strategist and admaker for national organizations and global corporations. In 2016, Nuckels led the public affairs advertising efforts for Airbnb in North America, which was awarded the AAPC’s Award for “Best Public Affairs Campaign” in America. He has led successful independent expenditure (IE) media efforts to help elect President Joe Biden in 2020, IE’s for U.S. Senate and for Governor in battlegrounds across America.
In 2006, Nuckels co-founded the successful media consulting firm Strother Nuckels Strategies. Prior to that he worked with Joe Slade White & Company as the Senior Executive Vice President. With that team, he helped elect long-shot write-in candidate Mike Duggan Mayor of Detroit, helped Uber win hard-fought public affairs battles, and defeated David Beckham’s Miami soccer stadium proposal.
Nuckels has worked on successful ballot initiatives across the country on important issues such as energy, medical marijuana, transportation, government reform, the sharing economy, tax reform, and more.
Nuckels was named to the first national “40 Under 40″ by the American Association of Political Consultants as one of the “40 best and brightest campaign professionals in the country.” In 2011, he was named a “Rising Star” of politics by Campaigns and Elections Magazine.
Before consulting, Nuckels was the successful Campaign Manager and strategist to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s “impossible” victory that RealClearPolitics.com called one of the top upsets in the country.
Famed prognosticator Nate Silver predicted Quinn had only a “9.4% chance of winning.”
Early in his career, he served as Chief of Staff to Wisconsin Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton after managing her campaign, worked as the Midwest Campaigns Director for the League of Conservation Voters, and staff to former presidential candidate and Vermont Governor Howard Dean.
