Brett Barbin ’15

Campaign Manager, Richards for Congress (Manilla, IA)

Brett Barbin is the campaign manager for Bret Richards (IA), who is currently running in the Republican primary against the incumbent congressman Steve King. In college, Brett worked on several campaigns in different capacities: “I originally ended up in Iowa through a program at the University of Chicago, where I graduated in June,” he said. “The program placed students in Iowa sometime before the caucuses to work in politics as interns.”

Brett previously worked as a deputy field director in Chicago during the 2016 election cycle. He found particular enjoyment in his work as a volunteer in the 2018 cycle, which involved knocking on doors and talking to voters directly. “That’s what really interested me in politics, because at this moment in our political climate it seems that people have difficulty discussing matters of public policy with each other,” he said. “When you’re out knocking on doors and just talking to people on their front doorstep, it’s reassuring that, as Americans, there are many more of us who simply want to see that things are done well in our government rather than picking petty partisan fights.”

Brett has also worked as an intern investigator for the Public Defender Service in Washington, DC. He taught English to Chinese kindergartners in Beijing in the summer of 2017, having started his Chinese language education at MFS in sixth grade.

Brett recalled the opportunities that MFS provided for independent work throughout his education. “Early on you could set your schedule in terms of what your interests were,” he said. “So it let you explore – and really own – different areas of study that were important to you and that you really wanted to improve on.”

My MPE Memory (2012): “I was a freshman and I was Mitt Romney, who was the eventual winner, but I was not the winner that day. Instead it was Joe Kiernan ’13, a good friend of mine who played Jon Huntsman. And my other friend Dante Bucci ’14, he was Newt Gingrinch…One of the things I remember most was shooting ads. I really like political ads and I naturally spent time on YouTube watching political ads with less than a thousand views. So I remember trying to shoot commercials for Mitt Romney… It was interesting to impersonate Romney and hold his positions when speaking to fourth graders and younger elementary students and trying to explain his positions on the issues to very different audiences.