SARAH LONGWELL, born on this date, is an American political consultant and publisher of news and opinion website The Bulwark. A former member of the Republican Party, she is the founder of the Republican Accountability Project and Republican Voters Against Trump, which spent millions of dollars to defeat then-President Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024. According to The New Yorker Longwell was dedicated to “fighting Trump’s takeover of her party” during his first term. Since Trump’s re-election, she has argued for defeating Republicans electorally to force the party to change from what she calls its authoritarian course.

Longwell became the first female national board chair of the Log Cabin Republicans. Longwell was instrumental in persuading the Log Cabin Republicans to refrain from endorsing then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016. In 2019, the Log Cabin Republicans endorsed President Trump for re-election and Longwell resigned as board chair. That same year, Longwell left Berman and Company to start her own communications firm, Longwell Partners, headquartered in Washington, D.C. Longwell also became publisher of The Bulwark, a pro-democracy news and opinion website which aims to be a community that “harnesses [post-partisan] energy to imagine a future that no longer includes reviving the Republican Party of the past.”

Longwell was a prominent voice in the Never Trump movement during his first term. More recently, she has argued for the need to move beyond “Never Trump” framing and inflict “sustained electoral defeat” on the Republican Party. Longwell was instrumental in founding Defending Democracy Together, Republican Voters Against Trump, Republicans for the Rule of Law, and other anti-Trump projects. Longwell advocated for the impeachment and removal of President Trump in 2019, and for his impeachment and conviction in 2021.

Longwell is a senior fellow at the Kettering Foundation, an American non-partisan research foundation. She is also the author of the book, How to Eat an Elephant, released in September 2026. The book introduces “a grand unified theory of how to destroy Trump’s Republican Party.”