Allie Kelly
Allie Kelly covers US politics for Business Insider with a focus on the intersection of political personalities, online culture, and how power is exercised and performed in public. Her work stands out for treating politics as something that plays out not just in legislatures and campaigns, but also in memes, viral moments, and the language politicians and activists use to reach their audiences.
Politics through personalities and performance
Kelly’s recent Business Insider headlines show a consistent interest in political figures as characters whose decisions, missteps, and rhetoric drive the news cycle.
She follows elected officials and rising political players across parties, highlighting how they introduce themselves to voters, how they brand their ideas, and how they respond when those ideas collide with public scrutiny. Her piece on Zohran Mamdani launching a new meme coin, framed as “Move over DOGE - Mamdani is launching COGE,” is emblematic: she approaches a local politician as both a policymaker and an online actor, unpacking what it means when an elected official borrows the language and logic of speculative internet culture for a political message.
Across her archive, she returns to stories where individual choices reveal something larger about the political moment. That can mean spotlighting a relatively under-the-radar lawmaker trying an unconventional tactic to make a point, or capturing how a more prominent figure’s stunt, tweet, or offhand comment reflects deeper tensions within their party. She tends to frame these pieces around the person at the center of the story while still grounding the narrative in the policy stakes or ideological conflicts at play.
Online culture, memes, and the political internet
An important strand of Kelly’s coverage is how politics migrates into online communities and meme spaces, then flows back into mainstream debate.
The COGE story shows her comfort writing about meme coins and crypto-adjacent trends as political tools rather than purely financial novelties, treating them as part of the modern campaigning and organizing toolkit. Where many politics reporters keep digital culture off to one side, she folds it into the core of the beat, treating a meme or token launch as a legitimate subject for political analysis when it reflects a strategy to reach specific audiences.
Headlines in her archive track how politicians and activists experiment with internet-native formats to push a message, test out ideological branding, or signal in-group membership. She pays attention to the language of these efforts - the slogans, coin names, and catchphrases - and how they tap into existing online narratives. Her stories often spell out for readers what a given meme or reference is, who it is meant to appeal to, and how that tactic fits within the broader communications strategy of the figure or movement involved.
Campaign tactics, messaging, and the edge of the mainstream
Kelly’s reporting frequently sits at the edge where unconventional tactics meet conventional politics. She writes about campaign messaging that borrows from finance, gaming, or internet fandom, as with a politician embracing a coin modeled on DOGE as part of their public identity.
Her approach emphasizes what these tactics signal: whether it is an attempt to present as insurgent and anti-establishment, to signal alignment with a particular online community, or to reframe a policy debate in more playful or novel terms.
Rather than treating these episodes as curiosities, she situates them within electoral and governance contexts - how they affect a politician’s credibility with colleagues, donors, or constituents, and whether they open up or close off paths to broader influence. Her headlines and story choices often sit one step removed from the day’s top-line legislative developments, focusing instead on the experiments in tone, medium, and framing that shape how those developments are received.
Short, accessible political explainers built from concrete examples
Within Business Insider’s format, Kelly tends to favor concise, newsy pieces that use a vivid example to open up a larger political theme. A headline built around a single politician’s meme coin is a hook for explaining the broader trend of crypto-flavored branding in politics, and similar stories in her archive use one discrete moment or character to illuminate shifts in strategy, coalition-building, or ideological positioning.
She writes in clear, plain language, accessible to readers who do not follow politics closely but are familiar with internet culture and want to understand how it intersects with governance.
Her work often assumes a reader who recognizes references like DOGE or meme coins but may not know the intricacies of state-level politics or the specific institution a figure belongs to. She closes that gap by grounding each story in the basic facts of who the subject is, what power they hold, and what concrete actions they are taking, then layering on the cultural context.
This makes her particularly suited to stories that need a bridge between policy detail and cultural relevance.
4 more politics journalists.
A.D. Quig
A.D. Quig follows money and power through Chicago and Cook County government, showing how political decisions, taxes and public spending affect residents and businesses. At the Chicago Tribune, she covers city and county politics, municipal finance, tax policy, budgets and the structures shaping mayoral and council authority. She joined the Tribune in 2022 after covering politics for Crain’s Chicago Business and The Daily Line. Her work examines council power, ethics rules, police leadership, tax incentives, public agencies and pandemic aid. She has reported on data center tax breaks, property tax errors, federal relief spending and the fiscal effects of major development proposals. Quig combines insider government reporting with public accountability journalism. She uses public records, data and budget documents, follows committees and staff negotiations, and explains complex decisions in plain language with precise numbers and a direct link to everyday consequences.
Adam Daly
Adam Daly covers politics for amNewYork with a focus on the inner workings of city and state government and the low-profile forums where power is exercised and negotiated. He reports on commissions and panels that shape how New York is governed, treating charter reform and government efficiency as central political terrain. His coverage of moves to replace an Adams-era charter commission with a new government efficiency panel foregrounds mandate, authority, and what “efficiency” means in practice for agencies and services. He tracks who gains and loses influence when one commission supplants another and which constituencies are being answered to. Daly explains dense procedural questions in clear, reader-facing terms, using specific institutional details and occasional wordplay to connect jargon-heavy reforms to public spending, service delivery, and mayoral power.
Adam Pack
Adam Pack covers Capitol Hill through power struggles, investigations and ideological fights, focusing on how Congress intersects with Donald Trump’s agenda. He is a politics writer on Fox News Digital’s Capitol Hill team, covering Congress, federal elections, legislative battles, election rules, war powers, primaries and intraparty fights. He previously wrote for the Daily Caller News Foundation. His reporting examines deadlines, vote counts, bill language, campaign spending, court rulings, oversight reports, culture clashes and emerging issues such as AI-backed political groups. He has covered FISA reauthorization, defense spending, the SAVE America Act, housing policy, redistricting, candidate absences, primary spending and disputes over sex, gender, religion and race-based caucuses. He reports primarily through news features and investigative-style pieces built around documents, committee reports, court records, unearthed video and specific legislative details. He often co-writes complex Capitol Hill stories and publishes “FIRST ON FOX” exclusives.
Adam Sullivan
Adam Sullivan is a veteran politics reporter for WCAX who connects elections and party disputes to everyday life. He covers statewide races, party primaries, federal representation, political rhetoric, extremism, and accountability across the Upper Valley and neighboring states. His reporting includes Becca Balint’s victory over Molly Gray in the Democratic U.S. House primary to replace Congressman Peter Welch. He also reports when political controversies affect public safety, political culture, towns, and institutions, including a New Hampshire Libertarian Party post endorsing violence against elected Democrats. Sullivan follows cultural stories with civic consequences, such as Noah Kahan’s appeal to fans to stop stealing a Strafford road sign linked to his music. He writes straight news centered on concrete events, official reactions, political context, community impact, and what comes next.