Derek Dufresne is a partner and co-founder at Ascent Strategic, a national firm that provides political and strategic consulting to candidates, political committees, and organizations. It also offers full vendor services such as mail, digital, phone, and text messaging services. Over the past decade, Dufresne held the same positions of partner and co-founder at RightVoter LLC and RightOn Strategies. Since the 2020 cycle alone, his firm has seen 57 client wins and produced 8.4 million pieces of mail, 140 million digital impressions, 40 million live calls, and 35 million text messages.

Derek is a Republican strategist who has run and won congressional campaigns across the country. Notably, he served as general consultant for Rep. Kat Cammack in 2020, helping to guide her through a ten-way primary and to victory as the youngest Republican Congresswoman in the 117th Congress. He subsequently ran her successful re-election campaign, serves as her chief strategist, and operates her prominent leadership PAC, American GRIT PAC, which supported 45 candidates across the country in 2022. Additionally, he advises her daily in her role as the Recruitment Chair for the NRCC this cycle.

He has been a senior advisor to several prominent PACs, including Sen. Rand Paul’s Protect Freedom PAC, and many issue advocacy organizations that have been responsible for victories in hotly contested races and initiatives around the nation.

Dufresne previously served as a Communications Director and a Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill for a Congressman representing NH-01, one of the most competitive seats in the country. Prior, he worked on constituent service issues for the Mayor of Manchester, New Hampshire, the largest city in the Granite State, where he received the Key to the City for his services.

Business Insider named Derek Dufresne as one of the top Republican millennials to watch in 2022, including him on a short list of “the party’s brightest stars who are working on races that will help determine the face of the GOP’s 2022 comeback.” In 2016, the Boston Globe highlighted him as one of the top 110 political endorsements needed to win the First in the Nation presidential primary in New Hampshire. He has received significant recognition from the National Young Republican Federation, the New Hampshire Republican Party, and the Manchester Republican City Committee.

Born and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, Derek is a proud graduate of Saint Anselm College. He lives in Washington, D.C.