Chris Cooper
Chris Cooper is the founder and President of Convergence Targeted Communications, a boutique political consulting firm in Washington, DC and Seattle, WA.
Over more than two decades in politics, Chris has worked on campaigns in over 40 states and the United Kingdom. His experience spans the fields of political strategy; persuasion mail creation, production and microtargeting; traditional and digital media consulting; campaign/project management; and public relations. His work has helped win elections from President, Governor and U.S. Senator to state representative, Mayor and city councilmember.
Convergence is positioned in the vanguard of reform-oriented candidate, independent expenditure and issue advocacy campaigns. The firm has worked on behalf of political reform ballot initiatives, including the successful efforts to institute Ranked Choice Voting in Maine, New York City and Portland, OR; state-based independent expenditures to bring new voices to state legislatures, open primaries and end gerrymandering; education reform advocates at the state and local level; and mayors and municipal officials in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, Nashville, Baltimore and Charleston, SC
Chris has developed and managed multi-state persuasion mail efforts for four US presidential campaigns. From 1998 to 2010, Chris consulted for the independent expenditure arm of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), helping to elect over 40 Members of Congress. In 2005, he directed the first national digital persuasion campaign for a general election in the United Kingdom.
Before founding Convergence in 2014, Chris served as a managing director at SKDK and a partner at MSHC Partners. During the 1990s, Chris served as national development director and political director at the New Democrat Network; campaign director at Campaign Performance Group, a persuasion mail firm; account executive at Joe Slade White and Company media consulting firm; manager of congressional campaigns, including former U.S. Rep. John Spratt (D-SC); director of voter identification and turnout on a gubernatorial campaign; and as a Capitol Hill aide to former US Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC).
A native of Charleston, SC, Chris graduated cum laude from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia and is a frequent lecturer at colleges, political training seminars and conferences. He and his wife, Elizabeth Spratt Cooper, live with their two daughters in Washington, DC. Chris is a long-suffering supporter of Tottenham Hotspur FC.
Nick Mildebrath
Nick Mildebrath is a partner at Convergence Targeted Communications. His fifteen-year career in professional politics spans 29 states, every level of the ballot, and victories for members of Congress and the mayors of some of America’s largest cities. His work has been awarded for excellence by Campaigns & Elections and the American Association of Political Consultants nine times.
Nick played a central role in Convergence’s work for Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. His work helped secure — and then protect — the Democratic majority in the Maine State House between 2018 and 2024. He helped defeat an incumbent Republican County Executive in Anne Arundel County, Maryland in 2018 and elect Kansas City, Missouri Mayor Quinton Lucas in 2019, when 11 candidates sought that office.
Beyond his political acumen, Nick has deep expertise in voter targeting and data management. He helped make Convergence an industry leader in the use of digital variable printing, producing hundreds of unique versions of some mail pieces to customize imagery, content, endorsements, and more to match artwork to a specific voter.
Nick started his career bagging groceries and his time in professional politics as a field organizer for Senator Patty Murray and other Democrats in Washington State in 2010. He worked on campaigns around the country and managed local campaigns in his native Florida before joining Convergence at its founding in 2014. A graduate of the University of Florida, he remains a loyal Gators fan.
Hannah Stansbury
Hannah Stansbury is the Campaigns Director at Convergence Targeted Communications and joined the company in 2024. With over a decade of campaign experience, Hannah has a proven track record of winning candidate and issue races across the West.
From 2019 to 2024, Hannah worked on and eventually headed Strategies 360’s Campaigns Team based in Seattle, Washington. In this role, she worked with clients in the electoral and advocacy arenas across 10 Western states to produce direct mail, print collateral, and digital marketing projects. Prior to that, she consulted on a variety of partisan and issue campaigns in Utah up and down the ballot and served as the campaign manager for Utah’s Medicaid expansion ballot initiative, which passed in 2018.
Originally hailing from Wyoming, she began her career running field operations for offensive state legislative races. In 2015, she was instrumental in founding a nonprofit coalition to conduct civic education and crafted leadership development and GOTV field programs.
Outside of politics, Hannah loves to travel, attend performing arts, and dig into a good book.
John Rasure
John Rasure is a Senior Associate at Convergence Targeted Communications. A lifelong news junkie, he got his start in politics working on local campaigns in his beloved home state of California. Since then he has traveled around the country working on campaigns in Iowa, Texas and DC. He has managed five local level races and worked at the DCCC.
John lives in DC with his partner and enjoys cooking, fantasy novels, and being a step-dad to two cats. He is a graduate of University of California, Davis and does not pay attention to their sports teams at all.
Lilah Shandel
Lilah Shandel is an Associate at Convergence Targeted Communications. She joined the firm in 2024 after graduating from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor with an honors degree in Political Science. In college, she served as an editor of the Michigan Undergraduate Law Review and the Managing Editor of Consider Magazine. She got her start in politics by volunteering with local campaigns in her home state of New Jersey, and working with grassroots advocacy groups, specifically women’s health organizations.
Lilah is an avid news junkie and she loves to read, bake, and watch football and hockey. She is an enthusiastic Michigan sports fan – go blue! – and a begrudging NY Rangers and NY Giants fan.