About
Meet Matt
A husband, father, small business owner, and union member.
Personal background
- Husband, father, small business owner, and union member
- Lives in San Leandro with his wife and two sons—ages 6 and 3—and both with autism diagnoses
- Born in Oakland and grew up in Hayward then later the Tri-Valley
- His father Mario attended West Point, served overseas in the U.S. Army, and later worked as an engineer at Lawrence Livermore and Stanford
- His mother Lynne was a devoted stay-at-home mom and heavily involved with her children: PTA, Little League, drove on field trips, assisted in classrooms, handmade Halloween costumes
- His grandmother Jennie helped raise Matt and his three siblings after his mother’s death from cancer in 1992
- His step-mother Carolyn was a longtime public school teacher who taught in Alameda and Dublin
- Graduated from San Ramon Valley High School in 2002 and the University of Arizona in 2006
- Self-taught how to code and graphic design since 12 years old and fortunate enough to merge it with another interest, politics, and build a successful twenty year career
- Broke into national politics while in college as a writer for major progressive blogs
Professional experience
- Served with Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund to unseat Rep. Richard Pombo in 2006 midterms
- Worked with Health Access California and SEIU on a statewide health care coalition in 2007
- Joined the Democratic National Committee under Gov. Howard Dean’s chairmanship through 2008 cycle to elect Barack Obama
- Served as a senior digital and communications aide to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign in the primary
- Digital operative in efforts to pass clean energy and climate legislation, pass a federal minimum wage increase, stop the Keystone XL pipeline, push for comprehensive immigration reform and protections for DREAMers, take on Trump’s Muslim ban, stop the Sinclair-Tribune merger, and provide support for NATO allies and Ukraine
- Started digital creative firm in June 2022 working with labor unions, progressive nonprofits, and Democratic candidates
- Career spent to elect Democratic candidates up-and-down the ballot: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barbara Lee, Jerry McNerney, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Beto O’Rourke, Bob Casey, Tom Wolfe, Ayanna Pressley, Jahana Hayes, and more.
Growing up in Hayward
Born in Oakland, Matt grew up in Hayward just off Harder and Mission. His youth was spent with little league at Sorensdale Park and sports in the street with neighborhood friends. His mother Lynne, a stay-at-home mom, died in 1992 from cancer. Matt was 8. His youngest sibling, a daughter his mother always wanted, was only 18 months old.
His father, unsure he could care for four children alone, contemplated splitting them up with family members. His grandmother Jennie, fulfilling her daughter’s wish, stepped up to help raise Matt and his three siblings. For six years, she slept on the family’s living room sofa five days a week. Then she would bring all four children to her home in Oakland every weekend and every summer. She raised five children of her own and helped keep her grandchildren together. Words cannot describe how much he owes his place in life to her.
Establish roots in Tri-Valley
The summer after graduation from Harder Elementary, Matt’s family moved to Danville in the Tri-Valley and his father remarried to a public school teacher, Carolyn. At 12, Matt taught himself how to code, building websites as a hobby. In high school, Matt pursued his interest in politics and the surrounding world by joining the student newspaper. He served as an editor his senior year. He enrolled at the University of Arizona and graduated with a B.A. in political science with a minor in history in 2006.
Securing a win for the district and fighting for better health care for all Californians
Upon graduation, he moved back to California to work on his first campaign. There he joined the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund’s independent expenditure campaign against Republican Rep. Richard Pombo.
Pombo, a seven-term incumbent dogged by the culture of corruption, represented Matt’s home district. The then-California 11th Congressional District stretched over parts of the present 14th Congressional District including Dublin and Pleasanton.
Matt and a small group of field staff organized within the district, recruiting volunteers, cutting turf, and fanning out to knock on doors and make calls. Pombo, a powerful House committee chair, was defeated in a Democratic wave election.
The following year, Matt joined a statewide health care coalition backed by labor and health organizations where he served as an “internet organizer.”
Taking the fight to Republicans on the national stage
Weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Matt moved across the country to join the Democratic National Committee under Gov. Howard Dean. He served in the national party’s “Internet Department” which helped elect Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States.
Matt served as digital director for a clean energy and climate coalition, pushing back on polluter-funded astroturfing against reform.
He later joined the firm New Partners as in-house designer and web developer, rising to deputy and then director of Digital by 2012. He gained national attention as a “frequent internet trickster” with compelling digital rapid response lampooning the target-rich campaign of Mitt Romney.
Matt Ortega is a talented guy—glad he’s on our side. We’d have hell to pay if he wasn’t.
Brad Woodhouse
DNC Communications Director, 2008-2013
Over the course of his career, his work appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic and featured on major broadcast and cable news programs such as The Today Show, CBS This Morning, and The Rachel Maddow Show.
In 2015, Matt joined Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as digital director for communications and served through the primaries before returning to digital consulting with NP Agency and later joined Middle Seat in 2018.
A husband and father fighting for the next generation
During the pandemic, Matt returned to California with his wife, Sophia, an Oakland native, and their son, Lucca, to be closer to family.
In June 2022, he started his own digital creative services shop. The firm, named for the street his grandparents lived on for over 65 years, serves Democratic candidates, labor unions, and progressive nonprofits. His son, Nico, was born later that year.
With two young children at home, Matt is all too familiar with the day-to-day struggle to afford basic necessities. Child care can run as high as housing for many families. Fortunately for Matt’s family, they were able to care for their youngest while working from home and send their oldest son to daycare part-time.
Matt also experienced welcoming a new child with and without paid parental leave. Matt was fortunate enough to take 12 weeks paid leave when his eldest son was born. Working for himself three years later, Matt did not qualify for California’s partial paid leave and could not afford to take time off. He found himself responding to work email from his son’s room in NICU.
In the richest nation on earth, life should be easier than this.
Organizing locally to keep the A’s in Oakland
Matt grew up a die hard Oakland Athletics fan. With the announcement of their move to Las Vegas, he leveraged his digital organizing experience to rally the community.
Working with local fan groups behind the “Sell” movement and the May 2023 “reverse boycott,” Matt created platforms for fans to lobby against the move with California and Nevada lawmakers, A’s ownership, MLB, and the players union.
At stake was more than just a baseball team. It was also 600 East Bay jobs for concession workers, bartenders, suite staff, and part-time game day workers left without severance or health care.
The haphazard relocation, approved by MLB, was yet another stark reminder about the outsized power billionaires hold. Wealthy owners pitch team franchises as a “community asset” to prey upon the loyalties of fans and lawmakers. How quickly they become “businesses” in search of public money for the private profit.
Despite the outcome, Matt was proud to be part of an effort which sought to preserve an East Bay cultural institution and shifted public perception of Oakland fans. Long derided as a “small market” with low attendance, East Bay fans made billionaire owner John Fisher the poster child for everything that is wrong with the business side of sports. Their efforts sparked a national fan movement replicated in cities across the country and a spot in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
Stay connected
This fight does not end with Tuesday’s results. The stakes are clear. The work continues. The moment is now. And in the richest nation on earth, the future we were promised is still worth fighting for. Stay in touch.