American Association of Political Consultants
Trade association for the political consulting profession

The American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) is the trade group for the political consulting profession in the United States. Founded in 1969, it is the world's largest organization of political consultants, public affairs professionals and communications specialists. Its "multipartisan" membership consists of political consultants, pollsters, media consultants, campaign managers, corporate public affairs officers, professors, lobbyists, fundraisers, congressional staffers, and vendors.
The American Association of Political Consultants maintains a "Code of Professional Ethics" for members.
Activities
The American Association of Political Consultants hosts the annual Pollie Awards and Conference. The Pollie Awards are the most prestigious awards in the field of political campaign and public affairs industry, in which the AAPC recognizes the best in the business of political professionals in hundreds of political campaign and public affairs categories. A new statue was made by New York firm Society Awards for the 2015 Pollie Awards. The AAPC also hosts several regional conferences throughout the year that feature several panelists who are specialists for the upcoming elections.
The AAPC seeks to set the standards of conduct for political and public affairs consulting through its "Code of Professional Ethics". Applicants for AAPC membership are required to sign the code, and to live by the standards it sets, as a condition of membership in the organization.
The public source identifies “American Association of Political Consultants” as trade association for the political consulting profession. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around American, Association and Political.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4743087. VIAF identifies the subject as 138479991. The Library of Congress control number is n88097821. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “American Association of Political Consultants” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.