section_path: Political career
section_name: Political career
paragraph_text: Political career
  
  Nehammer became active within the ÖVP party organisation after leaving the military, initially working with the party academy. He was then head of the service and mobilisation department at the party headquarters from 2007 to 2008 and the training and networking department from 2008 to 2009. He then became director of the party academy's Lower Austria association and was considered close to then-deputy governor Wolfgang Sobotka.
  
  In October 2015, Nehammer was appointed deputy general-secretary and federal organizational speaker of the Austrian Workers' Union (ÖAAB), the trade union association of the ÖVP. During the 2016 Austrian presidential election, he was appointed replacement manager for the ÖVP's Andreas Khol partway through the campaign, but was unable to save him from a historically poor result of 11%.
  
  He succeeded August Wöginger as general-secretary of the ÖAAB in 2016 and held this position until January 2018. In November 2016, he was also elected regional chairman of the ÖAAB Vienna. Since April 2017, he has been district party chairman of the ÖVP in Vienna- Hietzing.
  
  In the 2017 federal election, Nehammer was elected as a representative for Vienna. During the subsequent government formation, he was a member of the ÖVP negotiating team in the area of defence. He was elected as deputy chairman of the ÖVP parliamentary faction on 8 November and was appointed media spokesman. On 25 January 2018, he succeeded Elisabeth Köstinger and Stefan Steiner as general-secretary of the ÖVP. In September 2018, he also succeeded Efgani Dönmez as spokesman for integration and migration.
  
  Nehammer ran in the 2019 federal election in fifth place in the ÖVP Vienna state list, and eleventh place on the ÖVP federal list. He was also one of the ÖVP's five assessors at the electoral authority during the election. In the course of the subsequent government formation, he negotiated in the areas of Europe, migration, integration, and security.