Joe Watkins (born 1954[1]) is an American pastor of the Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Philadelphia.

He is a Philadelphia-based Republican media analyst who often appears on MSNBC,[2] and is host of Joe Watkins: State of Independence on Lighthouse TV.

Watkins grew up in Queens, New York and received a scholarship to attend Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was part of the second class to admit black students.

[1] When Quayle ran for vice president with George Bush in 1988, Watkins worked on the Bush-Quayle election campaign.

"[1] In 1994, Watkins announced his candidacy for the Republican party nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Harris Wofford.

Watkins struggled with raising money, once cancelling a bus trip because a donor failed to offer a vehicle.

[10] In 2010, the organization made the largest single donation to a candidate in Pennsylvania, with $3.3 million to Democrat Anthony Hardy Williams.

[14] Watkins was appointed by Delaware County, PA, Court of Common Pleas Judge Chad F. Kenney as the Chester Upland School District Receiver on December 14, 2012.

[2] In December, education secretary Carolyn Dumaresq tried to oust him, claiming he failed to turn the school district around and did not address the budget shortfall.

He quit his job at the school district in June 2015 when he accepted the post of Senior Vice President of External Affairs for ElectedFace, a company that operates a social-media platform connecting elected officials to constituents.