Sarah Longwell, a veteran Republican strategist turned media entrepreneur, has built the Bulwark into one of the few profitable digital-news startups targeting voters who feel alienated from both major parties. The company last year recorded more than $20 million in revenue and is on pace to increase that by roughly 50% this year, according to a person familiar with the company’s finances.
Longwell, who also runs the political strategy firm Longwell Partners, said she started the Bulwark in 2018 because she wanted “some place on the internet for people like her” — conservatives who opposed Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party. The site’s commentators offer unfiltered takes on politics and culture that Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist and now a Bulwark podcast host, said appeal to readers who feel “politically homeless.”
The publication has attracted investor interest. According to people familiar with the matter, Melinda French Gates and Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective have expressed interest in investing. Longwell has also turned down an offer to sell the company to James and Kathryn Murdoch, whose Lupa Systems already holds a stake in the Bulwark, other people said. Kathryn Murdoch, who sits on the Bulwark’s board, told The Wall Street Journal she was surprised by the startup’s resilience, especially during Joe Biden’s presidency. “I knew it was necessary and good as a counterpoint but I wasn’t sure to be honest if it was going to have the same relevance once [Trump] was out of office,” she said. “They have proven they have staying power.”
The Bulwark is part of a wave of digital-media properties drawing premium valuations. Journalist Bari Weiss sold the Free Press to Paramount last year for $150 million, four years after founding it. Semafor, the startup founded by journalists Ben Smith and Justin Smith, earlier this year raised $30 million at a $330 million valuation — even as older digital-media players struggle. Vox is selling assets including New York magazine and its podcasts to Lupa Systems; entrepreneur Byron Allen bought BuzzFeed after the once-highflying startup neared bankruptcy.
Longwell did not set out to run a media company. She began her career working for Republican lobbyist Rick Berman, known in Washington circles as “Dr. Evil” for opposing Mothers Against Drunk Driving and similar causes. She described herself as a conservative from an early age, reading economist Thomas Sowell as a teenager in Millerstown, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Kenyon College, she worked at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative campus organization.
While promoting former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s book “It Takes a Family,” Longwell was coming out as a lesbian to her family. She recalled seeing a little girl with two mothers at a protest holding a sign that read “My moms take me bowling.” That moment, she said, pushed her to come out publicly and fight for gay rights within her party. She joined the Log Cabin Republicans in 2011 and later became its chair.
Longwell and Weekly Standard founder Bill Kristol began running focus groups after Trump’s 2016 victory, hoping to find a primary challenger. What they discovered, she said, was that voters loved Trump. “I just was sure that it was an accident of history,” she said.
In late 2018, after the Weekly Standard shut down, Longwell hired four of its staffers and recruited Jonathan Last, the magazine’s former digital chief, to build the Bulwark. “I told her I would come help build it, but I’m not going to stay,” Last recalled. He remains the Bulwark’s editor.
The site has expanded rapidly. Over the past year it hired 22 employees, bringing its staff to 50, and moved into new offices. Paid Substack subscriptions grew 50% between June and the November election. The publication saw an almost 13% jump in paid subscriptions in the month after The Washington Post announced it would stop endorsing presidential candidates.
Longwell’s focus-group work, which she began as a way to understand voter sentiment, has become a signature feature. The Bulwark’s podcast “The Focus Group” shares recordings from voter conversations. But Longwell said she can no longer moderate focus groups in her free time because she is too easily recognized.
She is also writing a book, “How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time,” scheduled for publication Sept. 8.
The Wall Street Journal reported the details of Longwell’s trajectory and the Bulwark’s financial position in an article published June 13.