MATT MACKOWIAK
Matt Mackowiak (Mack-o-VEE-yack) is an Austin and Washington, DC-based political and communications consultant and President of Potomac Strategy Group (PSG), LLC, which provides political consulting to conservative campaigns and media relations and crisis communications assistance to companies, groups, and individuals.
He has served in senior roles for two U.S. Senators and a Governor, in the Bush administration, and in winning campaigns, and has developed a deep network of media and political relationships nationwide.
Matt’s consultancy, PSG, which he founded in 2009, provides corporate communications services, including public affairs, media relations, writing, opposition research, digital strategy, and other services. PSG has been actively working in the energy, health care, transportation, and tech sectors, among others.
In 2020, Matt and a local moderate Democratic activist named Cleo Petricek launched Save Austin Now, a nonpartisan organization with a mission of improving standard of living for all residents. In May 2021, Save Austin Now passed reinstatement of the homeless camping ban 58%-42%, over the objection of nine of ten Austin Council Members and then-Mayor Steve Adler. Additionally, they successfully passed bipartisan state legislation to ban unregulated camping statewide and punish cities that defund their police. In less than four years, Save Austin Now has become the largest grassroots organization in the city, with more 63,000 email addresses, more than 8,000 donors, more than 1,000 volunteers, and massive reach on social platforms.
In the 2018 cycle, Matt served as General Consultant for Pete Flores, who won Texas Senate District 19 in a ‘shocking’ and ‘historic’ 53%-47% win over Pete Gallego in the September special election. Flores flipped a D+12 district and became the first Hispanic Republican ever elected to the Texas Senate. In just eight weeks, the Flores campaign and their supporters made more than 100,000 calls, knocked on more than 30,000 doors, raised over $350,000 and the candidate visited all 17 counties. Flores’ current term will end in January 2021.
In the 2016 cycle, served as general consultant for Hugh Shine, who unseated incumbent State Rep. Molly White by 105 votes out of 18,000+ cast, which was 1 of only 4 State Rep. races (out of 150) where a challenger beat an incumbent. Matt also advised U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), who won reelection in TX-23 in a highly competitive district during a difficult national political environment.
In the 2014 cycle, Matt managed a statewide campaign for Texas Comptroller for House Ways and Means chairman Harvey Hilderbran, raising over $2.3 million and earning over 300,000 votes while winning 59 counties, ultimately finishing second in a four-way primary. He advised Texas Supreme Court Justice Jeff Brown, who won his contested primary by the third-largest margin of any Republican statewide candidate. He also advised former U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe, who defeated 17-term U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) in a primary runoff, the first Republican challenger to defeat a Republican congressional incumbent in Texas in the state’s history. From 2011-2014, Matt worked with PSG client Gov. Sean Parnell (R-AK) as a senior communications adviser, providing counsel on strategy, speechwriting, and media relations. In 2010 Matt served as Campaign Manager for Bill Flores, the Republican nominee in Texas’ 17th Congressional District. After winning a 5-way primary, Flores defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX) by 25% in November, the largest margin of victory of the 63 winning GOP challengers in the 2010 cycle.
In addition to offering counsel to individuals and corporations, Matt appears regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, Sky News, BBC News and CBC-TV, and provides political analysis two times a week for KTBC Fox 7 in Austin. He is a regular columnist for The Washington Times, Townhall and The Washington Examiner, and his columns are nationally syndicated. He is a judge for professional awards through the AAPC Pollies and the Goldies, given to top performing campaign operatives and vendors annually.
From 2007-2009 Matt served as Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the 4th highest ranking member of the GOP Leadership and from 2005-2007 he served in the same role for three-term former U.S. Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT). From 2003-2004 he was a political appointee at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security serving Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson. In 2004 he managed the second largest county in Iowa on the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. In 2005 he performed White House Presidential advance nationwide.
Matt has served as Chairman of the Travis County Republican Party since 2017, where he manages three staff and grew the organization from an annual budget of $40,000 the year before he took over to an average of $250,000 annually. He previously served as a Director of the Center for Public Policy and Political Studies at Austin Community College.
In 2016, he was named a finalist for “Austin Under 40” in the Public Affairs category and he is a graduate of Leadership Austin’s 2017 Essential Class. After raising over $54,000 in ten weeks for cancer research, he was named 2016 “Man of the Year” runner-up for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He serves as a Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Texas Cowboys and recently completed two three-year terms on the Board of Directors for Balcones Country Club, ending as Vice President. He was a 2016 delegate to the British-American Project, and is a member of the Council for National Policy and the Headliners Club in Austin.
A native of Austin, Matt graduated with a B.S. in Political Communications from the University of Texas in 2003. In 2012, Matt started a bipartisan political blog for Texas politics, Must Read Texas (mustreadtexas.substack.com), which aggregates the top news and opinion from across the state and delivers a daily email newsletter to more than 90,000 daily subscribers and 40,000 daily views.
Matt and his wife Amy (Sowa) Mackowiak live in Northwest Hills in Austin and have two spoiled rescue dogs, Hope and Harry. They attend Covenant Presbyterian Church in central Austin. Amy is in private practice as a Speech Therapist who works mostly with kids.