Anna Palmer

Palmer and Sherman departed Politico, together, in late 2020 to start Punchbowl News, an online news service focused on non-partisan reporting of power players, and inside events and leaders, in Congress and the Washington establishment — Palmer becoming Punchbowl's CEO.

In 2019, the duo also co-authored The Hill to Die On: The Battle for Congress and the Future of Trump’s America (a New York Times best-selling account of the Congressional politics of the early Trump presidency), which attracted extensive media attention.

From 2016 to 2020, the duo co-authored the Politico Playbook — a media franchise tracking the early Trump administration and its relations with the U.S. Congress. The duo tripled the platform's readership and doubled its revenue.

While at Politico, Palmer partnered with fellow journalist Jake Sherman, to cover political affairs in the capital, particularly the U.S. Congress. Palmer and Sherman have reported corruption among Democrats and Republicans. Their reporting on the spending habits of Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock reportedly led to his 2015 resignation.

In 2011, Palmer moved to Politico — a Washington political reporting journal.

In 2007, Palmer moved to Roll Call, a prominent Washington-insider newsletter.

After graduation, Palmer's first significant job was at the biweekly lobbying industry newsletter Influence. In 2005, working for the Legal Times, the parent company of Influence, she became one of the key journalists investigating the activities of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who orchestrated a vast network of corruption, resulting in over three years in prison for Abramoff, and convictions of 20 others. Palmer's work on the case brought her first national notoriety.

Palmer was born, as Anna Alda, in Le Sueur, Minnesota and raised in North Dakota. She attended high school in Kindred, North Dakota, and served as a page for U.S. Senator Kent Conrad. She is a 2004 graduate of St. Olaf College, where she double-majored in political science and English, with a concentration in mass communications, and (starting in 2000) wrote for its newspaper, the Manitou Messenger, becoming its executive editor. Her multiple internships included a summer at the Washington, D.C. bureau of The New York Times.

In October of that year, she was one of the team of Politico reporters who investigated and reported on allegations against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, that — when he headed the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s — he had sexually harassed two female employees, and the lobbying organization had, in response, paid the women to resign and keep quiet about the matter.

Anna Palmer (born May 25, 1982) is an American political journalist based in Washington, D.C. She has been the co-founder and CEO of Punchbowl News since January 2021, and the host of the related Daily Punch Podcast. She was previously a reporter for Politico and became its senior Washington correspondent.