Purple State

Dana Perino’s career has spanned nearly three decades at the intersection of American government, journalism, and publishing, positioning her as one of the most recognizable voices in contemporary political media. Born in Wyoming and raised in Colorado, Perino began her professional life as a local television reporter before moving to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a staff assistant on Capitol Hill and later as a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice. After a brief period in the private sector in the United Kingdom, she returned to Washington in 2001 to serve as a press aide in the George W. Bush administration, first at the Council on Environmental Quality and then at the White House. These positions gave Perino extensive experience with the relationship between public policy, political strategy, the media, and the carefully constructed messages through which political figures communicate with voters.

Perino eventually became Deputy Press Secretary and in 2007, White House Press Secretary under Republican President George W. Bush, serving through the end of his administration in January 2009. Her position required her to publicly articulate and defend the administration’s policies while navigating an often adversarial relationship between government and the press. After leaving the Whtie House, she transitioned into political commentary at Fox News as a contributor and quickly becoming a fixture of the network’s daytime and primetime programming. She is currently co-anchor of America’s Newsroom and a co-host of the panel program The Five, one of cable news’s highest-rated shows. Her work has kept her immersed in electoral politics, campaign strategy, political messaging, and ideological disagreement long after leaving government. That experience is particularly relevant to Purple State, whose fictional campaign includes polling discussions, debate preparation, political operations, the tension between national campaign strategy and local concerns, and more. Perino’s background helps explain the novel’s unusually detailed interest in the machinery surrounding politics.

Perino’s own political background also makes her choice of protagonists significant. A prominent Republican and conservative commentator, she nevertheless places three young Democratic women at the center of the novel and sends them to Wisconsin to help a Democratic presidential campaign. The principal romances then cross party lines, pairing the politically liberal New Yorkers with the Republican men from Cedar Falls. Perino has explained that she deliberately wanted to write about young liberal women encountering Republicans and discovering that political affiliation does not provide a complete picture of another person. In her words, “the idea [is] that we are not as far apart as we think, and that the most important decisions we make are not political, but personal” (Perino, Dana. “‘Purple State’ Reveals that Life’s Biggest Choices are Personal, Not Political.” Fox News, 19 Apr. 2026). These stated intentions provide important authorial context for the novel’s recurring emphasis on the theme of Bridging the Political Divide Through Personal Connection.



At the same time, Purple State does not require its Democratic protagonists to become Republicans or its Republican characters to abandon their beliefs. When discussing the romance in her novel, Perino stated, “I’m increasingly concerned, especially about younger people, who say they would never date someone who disagrees with them politically. I think they’re cutting off the possibilities for love and fulfillment because of politics, which is absurd” (Graham, Jennifer. “In Search of Purple American with Fox’s Dana Perino.” Deseret News, 23 Apr. 2026). The novel can therefore be understood as reflecting a principle that appears frequently in Perino’s public discussion of the book: political convictions matter, but they need not determine every friendship, romance, or judgment of character. Her decision to tell much of the story from the perspective of characters whose politics differ from her own reinforces this idea. Instead of ideological conversation becoming the resolution to political difference, the novel instead emphasizes coexistence, personal familiarity, and relationships formed around qualities that are not a part of party affiliation.