Hoosier Anne Hathaway rises from 'small town girl' to running the 2024 RNC (2024)

Brittany CarloniIndianapolis Star

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There is an energy on the floor of a national political convention that does not translate through the live coverage broadcast around the world every four years.

The most powerful political leaders and insiders from every state and some of the nation's best-known journalists, all crammed into one space under bright lights.

It gives Anne Hathaway goosebumps.

The Republican political consultant from Indianapolis — not to be confused with the Academy Award-winning actress — knows what it’s like to be in that space in person.She has seen national leaders enjoy peak popularity and unknowns launch careers with a great speech.

“It's so exciting and I think so surreal that I am a part of it,” Hathaway said. “Remember, I'm a small town girl."

And this year, she's not just enjoying the show, she's running it.

Hathaway has spent the last year and a half traveling between Milwaukee and Indianapolis for her role leading the committee responsible for organizing the 2024 Republican National Convention, where Republicans around the country will gather in mid-July to nominate Donald Trump for president. It is a special experience for Hathaway, who grew up in a northern Illinois town of 2,500 people, to prepare this Wisconsin city for a major political stage.

Republicans who know Hathaway said there are few people in the party more prepared for this moment. Hathaway's career spans decades working in all levels of Republican politics where she has gained the respect of vice presidents, U.S. senators, mayors, governors and other key national GOP figures.

A girl from Illinois farm country

Hathaway grew up in the 1970s in Galva, a northwestern Illinois town that built her love for politics.

Her parents, who owned a hardware store, would host coffees for candidates and take Hathaway to phone banks to make campaign calls. She listened to farmers and businessmen at the local coffee shop talk about the price of crops and community news.

“I was political then and without knowing it,” she said.

But Hathaway’s high school guidance counselor told her politics was merely a hobby, so she majored in interior design at the University of Illinois. Despite that, she still found herself getting involved in political activities on campus, including leadership roles in the Panhellenic Association.

Doors continued to open for Hathaway from there. Her first paid political job was building yard signs for former Illinois state Sen. Ken McMillan, who ran for Congress twice and lost. Hathaway said she still keeps in touch with him today. But following McMillan’s second campaign defeat, she hopped in a car heading to Washington, D.C., and started a job at the U.S. Treasury Department during Ronald Reagan's presidency. She worked under Treasury Secretary James Baker until he left in 1988 to manage George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign.

Hathaway, too, went to work for the Bush campaign, where she met a couple from the Hoosier State: Dan and Marilyn Quayle. Hathaway recalls that Bush campaign staff were quiet when someone asked who wanted to handle Marilyn Quayle’s campaign schedule.

“I said, ‘Well, I’ll do it,’” Hathaway said. “It’s the Midwestern work ethic. It needs to be done. I’ll do it.”

The scheduler role helped Hathaway develop a close relationship with Marilyn Quayle. They worked together on the campaign trail and then in the transition ahead of Bush’s start in the White House in 1989. Marilyn Quayle then asked Hathaway to be her personal aide, but Hathaway declined.

“I asked to be on the vice president’s team,” Hathaway said.

She started in Vice President Quayle’s office as a deputy scheduler and three months later became acting scheduler. When Hathaway left the White House four years later, she was assistant to the vice president and director of scheduling and public liaison.

"She was very efficient, very organized," Quayle told IndyStar. "When she gave you the schedule or gave you a briefing you knew that it was always correct. She had that way about her."

Hathaway's political knowledge and work ethic is why Quayle believes Hathaway should lead the Republican National Committee in the future.

"That hasn't happened yet, but don't be surprised if she gets the top job someday," he said.

Hathaway credits the deep bonds she made with the Quayle family for bringing her to Indiana. In 1993, she moved with them to Indianapolis.

Building strong Republicans

In Indiana, Hathaway continued working with the former vice president, including helping Quayle build a political action committee and organize his book tours. But when the family moved to Arizona, Hathaway took on jobs in the Hoosier state to help Republicans win elections.

She started a role with the Indiana House Republican campaign committee and in 2000 was tasked with trying to help the party win back the House majority. It was at that time she recruited Eric Holcomb, who was working for then-U.S. Rep. John Hostettler, to run for state representative.

“He lost, but we became fast friends,” Hathaway said.

That relationship with Holcomb continues today as he finishes his second and final term as governor of Indiana. Holcomb told IndyStar that after all these years, he considers Hathaway family.

"There are highs and lows in this business," Holcomb said. "There are a number of people that you can call and not ask them to solve it, but just be there. She's always been that path for me and I hope me for her."

The political roles Hathaway took on in Indiana and beyond have focused on the long-term growth of the Republican Party. When Holcomb nominated Hathaway to lead the state party in August 2023, she said she accepted in part because of her love of and experience in grassroots organizing. In her 10 months on the job, Hathaway said she focused on meeting party leaders and candidates and connecting people with resources Republicans need to continue to win in Indiana.

But as the Indiana state party chair, she was also looped into criticism of the party "establishment" from some in the far right wing focused on challenging the political status quo. Hathaway has historically worked closely with more moderate GOP candidates like Holcomb, who received backlash from some Republicans who saw his pandemic response as heavy-handed.

Hathaway, though, stands by all of her party's chosen candidates, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum.

Hathaway has publicly supported former President Donald Trump's campaign to return to the White House. In a statement after Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records, she said President Joe Biden and his Democratic allies "weaponized" the justice system.

Republican lieutenant governor nominee Micah Beckwith, whose campaign ahead of the state convention took aim at the "establishment," thanked Hathaway in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, following the news she would step down as state party chair in June.

Hathaway calls herself a 70-30 Republican, which means she focuses on what she views as the 70% of issues most people in the party can agree on, such as a strong economy and smaller government, while recognizing that political parties change over time.

At the state convention, Hathaway specifically told delegates before voting for lieutenant governor that the party needed to come together, whatever the outcome, to focus on victory. Hathaway saw that Braun and Beckwith met after the convention and discussed their differences, she said.

“Politics for me is simple math,” she said. “If we're not adding and building the coalition to get to 50-plus-one to win elections, then I'm not doing my job.”

Those job responsibilities are not the ones in front of a camera. Hathaway is often the person standing offstage as her candidates make acceptance speeches or she is teaching future leaders about engaging in public service.

It's work that is incredibly valuable, said Noblesville Mayor Chris Jensen, who asked Hathaway to run his first campaign for Noblesville City Council, a role "well beneath her," he joked.

"She's the first call I make when I have a tough question that I need to think through, because she's so much more than politics," Jensen said. "She's very substantive on policy. She can really be a voice of reason from not only the political angle but from managing a city, managing a state, managing anything. She can handle the most complicated issues."

The Lugar Series

Hathaway founded her consulting firm, Hathaway Strategies, in 2009 following jobs with the Republican National Committee.That same year, she also took on the role of executive director of the Lugar Series, the Republican training platform to engage women in public service. The program has more than 650 alumni and inspired similar efforts in other states.

Hathaway even shared information and materials about the Lugar Series with Indiana Democrats to help the party launch its own program, Hoosier Women Forward.

Attorney Liane Hulka, who co-founded the Democratic organization, recalled attending a Lugar Series event to learn more about the program where the room was filled with female elected officials and candidates for office — all Republicans.

"It was kind of at that moment where I'm like, 'How did we waste 27 years not building this network that the Republicans have built and strengthened under the leadership of Anne Hathaway,'" Hulka said.

It's clear what Hathaway means to Lugar Series graduates when she interacts with them in person. Following the state GOP convention in June, Lugar graduates who served as delegates took a group photo with Hathaway in which she was surrounded by women of all ages and levels of Republican political involvement across the state.

Melissa Proffitt, an attorney and former Lugar Series board member, said Hathaway has had an "invaluable" impact on the program, especially due to her ability to connect one-on-one with graduates and maintain those relationships.

State Sen. Cyndi Carrasco, R-Indianapolis, knows Hathaway's impact first hand. Carrasco said Hathaway was one of the first people she spoke with when considering her run for Marion County prosecutor. Hathaway asked tough questions, Carrasco said, but supported her every step of the way, even when she lost the 2022 race.

Carrasco said she kept Hathaway's advice with her, including in 2023 when she ran and won a Republican caucus to fill the remainder of the late state Sen. Jack Sandlin's term at the Statehouse.

"In the prosecutor's race, the timing wasn't there," Carrasco said. "But I do remember her saying a lot of times, it's about how you react when things don't go your way that really starts to define who you are as an individual and the other opportunities that are going to be available to you."

On the national stage

Hathaway’s path to the 2024 Republican National Convention started in 2001, when she became a regional political director for the Republican National Committee. She raised and spent money to build teams, recruit candidates and lead successful campaigns.

From 2007 to 2008, Hathaway served as chief of staff for former RNC Chairman Mike Duncan and helped with the 2008 Republican National Convention. She stepped away from the RNC for a time after Duncan was not reelected but was later chosen to be the program director for the 2012 Republican convention.

In 2016, Hathaway was elected as Indiana’s national committeewoman, the Hoosier State’s representative to the Republican National Committee. It allowed Hathaway to return to the RNC as a voting member instead of staff. Indiana Republicans unanimously elected Hathaway to another term as national committeewoman in June.

"She's really earned her way to the top of the Republican organization, just by actually doing the hard work," said Teresa Lubbers, who helped co-found the Lugar Series. "It's political savvy, doing hard work and really through years of experiences in both state and national level."

Hathaway’s experience with Republican conventions stood out to Ronna McDaniel, the former RNC chairwoman, who asked Hathaway to lead the selection committee that would pick the site of the 2024 convention. McDaniel called Hathaway again in January 2023 and asked Hathaway to lead the committee on arrangements for the convention in Milwaukee.Both times, Hathaway was stunned.

“‘I think I said again, ‘Are you serious?’” Hathaway said about McDaniel's 2023 call. “She said yes and I said absolutely.”

Since then, she has made the long drives between Indianapolis and Milwaukee to prepare for the Republican party's big moment. Preparations include launching what Hathaway said is a live TV show every night for the four days of the convention, but also providing an unforgettable experience for delegates.

Like most things in politics, there are bumps in the road. In early June, a Washington news outlet reported that Trump called Milwaukee “a horrible city” while meeting with members of Congress, something Trump later walked back. But Hathaway said she is excited for Milwaukee to have an opportunity on the national stage and she’s determined to deliver the “best convention ever."

“There's nothing like a national convention because of the energy, the enthusiasm," Hathaway said. "We're all coming together."

Making things happen

Inside a hall in the Wabash wing of the Indiana Convention Center in mid-June, Hathaway navigates through a crowd of Hoosier Republicans at the state convention who all want a moment with her.

Hathaway receives a high-five from Congresswoman Erin Houchin. State Sen. Aaron Freeman pats her on the shoulder, and Hathaway stops to chat with a candidate running for a Statehouse seat in Hamilton County.

She would never say it about herself, but at this biennial state party gathering, Hathaway is a rock star. News headlines later that day featured the delegates' choice of Beckwith as Braun’s running mate. But Hathaway caught unanimous applause from delegates and convention guests for her work, even as the night before she shared plans to depart the state party role.

“They tapped her to be in charge of the entire RNC in Milwaukee,” Indiana convention chairman Randy Head told the room. Head would be elected the next state GOP chair later in June. “Anne won’t tell you that stuff, so I felt like someone ought to. She’s been amazing.”

But Hathaway just feels lucky to be here.

“I love to make things happen,” she said.

Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Brittany Carloni at brittany.carloni@indystar.com or 317-779-4468. Follow her on Twitter/X @CarloniBrittany.

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