A member of the Conservative Party, Donelan also held three other cabinet positions from 2020 to 2023 under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

[1][2] Donelan's career outside politics was in marketing, including a time working on Marie Claire magazine and for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

[1][7] Donelan stood at the 2010 general election in Wentworth and Dearne, coming second with 17.6% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP John Healey.

[7][1][10] After her selection at Chippenham, she became a trustee of Help Victims of Domestic Violence, a charitable organisation based in the town and a member of the Steering Group of Wiltshire Carers.

[28] Donelan initially backed Nadhim Zahawi[29] in the July-September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, later backing Penny Mordaunt, after holding a constituency survey, she later switched her endorsement to Liz Truss after Penny Mordaunt and Nadhim Zahawi, who didn't receive enough support from Conservative MPs to move forward,[30] were eliminated from the election.

[31][32] Donelan was appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 7 September 2022 by then prime minister Liz Truss.

[33] Rishi Sunak succeeded Truss following the October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, and Donelan retained her position in the cabinet.

[34] She stated in January 2023 that she was against returning the Parthenon marbles to Greece, on the grounds that restitution would "open a can of worms" and be a "dangerous road to go down.

[36] In a reshuffle of Sunak's cabinet on 7 February 2023, Donelan was appointed to the newly created role of Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Tech entrepreneur Ian Hogarth, who warned about the race to "God-like AI" and urged governments to intervene with significant regulation, was later named chair of the taskforce.

One of the academics, Kate Sang of Heriot-Watt University, had commenced a libel action against Donelan, who was represented by the government legal service.

[47][52][53] Sang's lawyer said "It is extraordinary that a minister should be guided by a lobby group into making serious false allegations about private citizens without doing the first piece of due diligence.

[55] In May 2023, Donelan announced she would be contesting at the next general election the Melksham and Devizes constituency,[56] where she lived,[57] as the boundaries of her Chippenham seat had been redrawn.