Our work
Campaigns
To counter growing threats to democracy in the 2022 midterm elections, Caroline partnered with BerlinRosen and clients democracyFIRST and the Pro-Democracy Campaign to support pro-democracy candidates up and down the ballot. Our targeted outreach led to placements in more than 20 leading national outlets including The Washington Post, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Politico, and supported the victories of pro-democracy candidates in key positions across the country. The coverage also highlighted democracy as a leading issue for voters in the election.
New York Magazine: The Data-Driven Strategy Behind Democrats’ State-Level Success in 2022
Ahead of the critical 2022 midterm elections, in partnership with BerlinRosen and The States Project, Caroline led an effort to provide earned media support to 40 competitive state legislative races in the key battleground states of Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. We stood up a full campaign operation with 20 media specialists and support staff that provided on-the-ground support for the candidates in coordination with the state Democratic caucuses. By Election Day, we landed close to 500 stories across the three states, contributing to wins by 75% of the candidates we supported, and the flipping of two state houses (Michigan and Pennsylvania) to Democrats for the first time in decades.
On President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, Caroline was responsible for planning and executing large events, briefing and booking high-level surrogates, and getting positive press coverage of the campaign in the swing state of Virginia. Following the election, Caroline was also a senior member of the communications team for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, where she led communications for the parade, including writing the script book for the parade’s announcers, and working with parade participants, military representatives, announcers and local and national media outlets to ensure a successful parade.
Caroline was head of communications for John Foust's (VA-10) congressional campaign, organizing events, briefing the candidate for interviews, and getting positive press coverage for the campaign.
EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
As Senior Advisor, Caroline was the primary traveling press secretary for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. In her role, Caroline led a team of six people, including media relations, digital and speechwriting staff, and traveled with the Democratic Leader to more than a dozen states and foreign countries. Caroline also led on messaging and strategy on a range of issues including health care, the budget, tax reform, trade and infrastructure.
Caroline was the primary traveling press secretary for EPA Administrator McCarthy under President Obama, where she led crisis communications and rapid response for five EPA regions across 22 states. Following her approval by the Senate in July 2013, Caroline led speechwriting and media relations during the Administrator’s inaugural roadshow, and helped lead the EPA’s communications throughout the Obama Administration’s push for the Clean Power Plan. (Photo credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)
In the fall of 2023, Caroline partnered with BerlinRosen and the National Abortion Federation to announce the organization’s new CEO, Brittany Fonteno. Caroline and the team worked hand-in-hand with NAF’s executive team to develop a comprehensive plan for the announcement, which included a detailed timeline for the public announcement as well as conversations with staff, members, partners and donors, messaging for communicating the announcement to each audience, prep for each conversation including how to respond to potentially difficult questions, and management of media outreach to outlets that we felt would best position Brittany and NAF among the organization’s peers.
Williams College Alumni Magazine: Election Results
At the organization’s launch, Caroline partnered with voting rights organization Access Democracy to raise the profile of co-founder Hannah Fried, landing a profile in the alumni magazine for Hannah’s alma mater, Williams College. Caroline consulted for Access Democracy around the organization's launch in 2017, advising on communications strategy, website design, messaging, and product roll-outs.
ISSUE ADVOCACY
Washington Post: Memo to Democrats: Hammer the GOP as complicit in Trump’s coup
Leading into the high-profile congressional January 6th hearings, Caroline led a months-long effort on behalf of BerlinRosen, the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Not Above the Law Coalition to elevate the work of the January 6th Select Committee. We deployed validators–including former Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) and former Georgia Republican elector Baoky Vu–to shape coverage of the hearings and engage the press about the importance of the committee’s work. Through bi-monthly Politico-Playbook-style newsletters, and a massive television booking operation, we were able to shape the public narrative of the committee’s hearings.
In the lead up to and following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, Caroline led communications for the National Abortion Federation in partnership with BerlinRosen. We significantly increased the organization’s media presence, and elevated core pillars of their work, including the National Abortion Hotline, the annual reports tracking violence against abortion clinics and providers, and NAF’s national provider network. In addition to earned media, we partnered with NAF on their digital presence, DEIA communications, as well as celebrity and influencer engagement.
New York Times: Why Americans Need a Guaranteed Income
Building support for a national guaranteed income policy, Caroline partnered with the Economic Security Project and UpShift Strategies. Working with mayors like Stockton’s Michael Tubbs, members of Congress including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and Senator Corey Booker, renowned economist Darrick Hamilton, and the organization’s leadership, Caroline helped to reframe the conversation around poverty and cash policies through prominent press placements, informational videos, and op-eds.
At World Wildlife Fund, Caroline led communications for the organization's programs in Asia and Africa, which included taking reporters on site visits, including a trip to Namibia with NPR's Christopher Joyce and John Poole for a story on the country’s wildlife conservation model. Caroline also facilitated press coverage for WWF while attending the UN climate change and sustainable development conferences in Durbin, South Africa and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo credit: John W. Poole/NPR)
Washington Post: Republicans cut and pasted their ‘new’ Obamacare alternative
...Robert Pear of the New York Times reported that the plan was “drafted with encouragement from Republican leaders,” “devised” by Hatch, Burr and Upton, and included a “potentially explosive proposal.” Pear reported that “Republicans said the need for such an alternative had become more urgent.”
But Caroline Behringer, the eagle-eyed press secretary for Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, was suspicious that this “urgent” and “explosive” new proposal had just been “devised.” So she did some sleuthing and discovered that the Republicans had lifted the thing — right down to quotes in the news release — from the rollout of the same proposal a year earlier.
This “new” plan in fact had something old, something borrowed and something blue: a two-page explainer borrowing virtually the same 700 words from the 2014 version and set in the same robin’s-egg blue font. The only thing that appeared to be new was the name of Upton, substituted for that of Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), who “unveiled” the plan with Hatch and Burr in 2014 but has since retired.