Lee Atwater died in 1991 at forty. The structure he built — opposition research, paid media, earned media, and third-party validators run as one coordinated effort — is the structure every American political campaigner now operates inside.
Sixty operators defining modern political influence — across Washington, Westminster, Jerusalem, Delhi, and the capitals of the global campaign trade. The Campaigner Index 2026, Edition 1.
The wealthiest homeowner in America used to find her interior designer through a referral, an Architectural Digest spread, or a single phone call to a friend. That funnel is now obsolete. She is opening ChatGPT. She is asking Claude. She is querying Perplexity. And the names she