Fox News’ Dana Perino Upends a Dating Rule: Couples Don’t Need to Share Faith or Politics
Forget the online brawls: Fox News host Dana Perino says Americans share far more common ground than the social media wars suggest — and face-to-face conversations still bridge the divide.
Fox News anchor Dana Perino just wrote a romance about people falling in love across the aisle. Yes, that Dana Perino. The longtime cohost of The Five, 53, is out here pitching optimism in an election-year story set between New York City and Wisconsin. It is both very political and very... rom-com. And honestly, it sounds tailor-made for an adaptation.
Perino's big idea: politics matters, but it should not eat your life
"Once you strip away social media and you actually meet people, it doesn't matter where they are in the country. We can all get along pretty well."
Perino says we are obviously in a polarized moment, but she thinks that gets wildly over-amplified online. What actually bothers her are the growing numbers of people who say they would never date or even be friends with someone who disagrees with them politically. In her view, that cuts off a ton of real-life possibility - romance, long-term relationships, friendships, even career stuff - before it has a chance to start.
That is the operating principle of her debut novel, 'Purple State: Where Red Meets Blue and Love Is Never Black and White'. The mission statement: you can care about politics, even work in it, without letting it consume your identity. Leave some room and you might notice the actual humans standing across from you.
The story she wrote
Perino builds the book around three women living in New York City. One of them gets a one-year shot to work on a presidential campaign in Wisconsin, where the goal is to flip the state from red to blue. Her two friends tag along for the ride. Over the year, they bang into the usual life stuff - work ambitions, friendship friction, and, yes, love - while the campaign grind hums in the background. If that sounds like a very behind-the-scenes political angle snuck into a relationship dramedy, it is.
Perino even leans into one of the spicier ideas: a Democrat and a Republican meeting, falling for each other, and choosing to commit. She knows some people will roll their eyes and call that unrealistic. Her counter: it is fiction, it is aspirational, and maybe we could use a little more of that right now.
Does mixed-belief love actually work?
Perino points to a real-world example she likes: Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, and his wife, Usha Vance, who is Hindu. They are expecting their fourth child, and in Perino's words, that looks like a pretty successful marriage. The broader takeaway is not who you vote for or where you worship - it is how you show up for each other.
Her own meet-cute was straight out of a screenplay
Perino met her husband, Peter McMahon, on an American Airlines flight back in the day. Two and a half hours of nonstop conversation later, she calls it love at first flight. Her logic is simple: it was chemistry. Without that, the rest does not really click.
- Title: 'Purple State: Where Red Meets Blue and Love Is Never Black and White'
- Author: Dana Perino (debut novel)
- Premise: Three NYC friends relocate to Wisconsin for a year so one can work a presidential campaign aiming to flip the state from red to blue
- Themes: Cross-party romance, friendship, career, and wearing politics lightly
- Real-life parallel referenced: JD Vance (Catholic) and Usha Vance (Hindu) - fourth child on the way
- Release: Tuesday, April 21, wherever you buy books
Bottom line: Perino is betting that readers still want a hopeful, grown-up love story set in a battleground state. If the book sticks the landing, do not be shocked when someone snaps it up for TV.