Jeff Timmer, Senior Advisor
Jeff Timmer is a political, public affairs, and communications strategist with nearly 40 years of experience at the highest levels of campaigns, government, and issue advocacy. A former Executive Director of the Michigan Republican Party, he has managed, advised, and directed strategy for hundreds of campaigns at every level, with deep expertise in political strategy, Michigan politics, redistricting, voter behavior, message development, and political crisis management.
Timmer is a Senior Advisor to The Lincoln Project and a leading voice among former Republicans and independents who have allied with Democrats to defend American democracy from Donald Trump. After three decades inside the GOP, Timmer concluded that Trump was not an aberration the party would correct, but a test of character it overwhelmingly failed. He joined The Lincoln Project because defeating Trump and the movement built around him required people who knew the Republican Party from the inside—and were willing to say plainly what too many chickenshit Republican leaders would only whisper privately.
No one understands the politics of Michigan, one of America’s most consequential battleground states, better than Timmer. His analysis of Republican strategy, election law, voter behavior, and the mechanics of campaigns appears frequently in national and international broadcast and print media. He was an advisor to Ohio Governor John Kasich’s 2016 presidential campaign, served as a Republican member of the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, and is widely recognized as a redistricting and political strategy expert.
Timmer was also a co-founder of Republicans and Independents for Biden and co-hosts “A Republic, If You Can Keep It,” a podcast on Michigan and national politics with former Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer.
A political consultant, strategist, democracy advocate, and Warren Zevon fan, Timmer brings an insider’s understanding of Republican politics, a blunt assessment of the stakes facing the country, and a willingness to call out cowardice, corruption, and authoritarianism wherever he sees it, often with inventive, colorful profanity.