Thanks from NC. I have been involved in politics since 2008 in NC and I have NEVER seen such enthusiasm prior to any election. NC Women are Fired Up and Ready to Go!!!
Agree, Rowan Vicki B. And Thanks Jay Kuo for highlighting the possibility of North Carolina Flipping Blue. The people there are amazing. Jessica Craven in her “Chop Wood, Carry Water” substack urged us to listen to an interview with the Dem Organizer in Mecklenburg, North Carolina explain the ground game for Mecklenburg Dems to leverage there new volunteer enthusiasm into real political results for NC and thus for all of US. I was so inspired I sent a donation. https://substack.com/redirect/8cb7da2a-57a4-470b-85c9-003f6b95922e?j=eyJ1IjoiNWc5ZXcifQ.edw7_4Cgap8igwBWwjGUcONI5OgeJJWQbhGnSrR3Pfs
Harris has a two pronged approach to gaining rural votes that shows wisdom and strength. She shows up in several rural areas and then emphasizes her ideas by also having offices/outreach in rural areas. Her message is “She shows up and cares.” Very savvy.
We are 1000% purple but you often have to really look to see it. The GOP here has gerrymandered the Dems all to heck which apparently is totally legal and legit according to state and federal scotus but we are purple. And I will never forget Obama winning my state in 2008. I know we can help Harris here and I'm excited to know she will be focusing efforts here. She's already obviously outspent T here on advertising. For every one T commercial we see two Harris commercials. We're fired up and can't wait for election day.
I’m sure you know of this documentary, Jay, but thought I’d mention and recommend it here. Slay the Dragon. “ A grassroots movement led by a young woman with no prior political experience gathers influence to protect voting rights and end gerrymandering, where electoral maps are re-drawn to serve the party in power.”
Fellow North Carolinian here - living in the epicenter for GOTV efforts, Mecklenburg County. We have the most registered Democrats in the state but one of the worst Dem turnout rates in the State! UGH! Listen to this excellent podcast where the host interviews Drew Cromer the 20-something chair of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party (MCDP). He has a plan and he has recruited lots of in- and out-of-state volunteers to implement it.
Even before Biden passed the torch, our state party chair, Anderson Clayton had a 2-pronged approach to winning in NC: the aforementioned plan in Mecklenburg and an effort to engage rural voters by making sure there were Democratic candidates in races all over the state. She did a superb job - there are (I think) 198 races at the state and local level and there are candidates in all but a few. In 2024, it is the GOP that is leaving seats unchallenged in the Blue counties! I know of several NC house races in my area that have no one challenging them in November - but they are still coming out to canvass and help the Dem candidates running for Senate that overlap their district.
If you would like to help boost turnout and volunteer recriuitment in NC , there are plenty of phonebanks:
As Jay noted, one of the key things necessary to flip NC is to boost minority turnout. I'm writing postcards for Reclaim Our Vote (https://www.centerforcommonground.org/reclaim-our-vote) - there are also opportunities to text and phone bank.
Postcards require a brief online training and that you use their postcards - I purchased mine from a minority-owned printer with quick turnaround time and a minimum order of 50 postcards. ROV has a current campaign to BIPOC voters in Mecklenburg County with plenty of names & addresses still available. These are write and hold with postcards to be mailed between Sept 15 and Sep 30. (You provide the postage).
In addition, there is an upcoming Reclaim our Vote GOTV Update scheduled for next week -Sept 5 at 8pm ET over Zoom:
This is what I was going to say. We are much bluer than we look. And sick and tired of being gerrymandered and voter-suppressed. See y’all at the polls!
I'm hoping she does another bus tour in NC, like she's done in Georgia and Pennsylvania. She could also have some fun by going to Florida! I was hoping she would go to Montana, but I'm not sure John Tester wants her to.
I think the only issue with NC is the bad map that makes all the blue spots so far away from each other. (Its long past time Charlotte had a direct highway to Fayetteville!)
This NC gal sure hopes we're getting bluer by the day. The coastal counties (Brunswick, New Hanover, Carteret) are still pretty red. Not sure why, however, there is a lot of money over there. Not sure about Onslow county - home of Camp Lejeune. We're working hard though. Our D candidate for State Attorney General - Jeff Jackson - sends out lots of communications but still folks don't know much about him.
So again I direct your attention to this idea now clearly stated in your post today:
But the Harris campaign is doing more than just talking about reaching these voters. In neighboring Georgia, the campaign is already running the playbook of Sen. Raphael Warnock, whose winning 2022 strategy was not only to score big in Atlanta but to work hard to lose by less in other parts of the state. Principal deputy Harris campaign manager Quentin Fulks is himself a rural Georgia native, and he is looking to replicate that strategy in North Carolina.
“You have to really stave down margins and go places even when you don’t think you can win it outright,” Fulks told Politico. “You know you’re going to lose that county, but just showing up there can sometimes be the difference between 5 to 10 percentage points, or sometimes just putting an office there.”
I continue to be mystified as to why the Dems do not invest money in PEOPLE not just geographic counties, people who might lose but also represent a promising future. Here I mean Shawn Harris who is challenging MTG for her House seat. https://www.shawnforgeorgia.com
Black, retired military, businessman. Why would they not put money and a bit of time underneath his campaign and give him a leg up next go around? And that is assuming he cannot compete this time?
Agree. Had the party invested in Colorado District 3's Democratic candidate Adam Frisch in 2022, he might not have lost (by only 546 votes). I don't know if the party is investing in her current Democratic opponent in District 4 but it definitely seems worth the gamble, considering the majority of votes in the primary were split by her five opponents. It seems likely that had she had only one opponent in the primary, she would have lost. Here's hoping the Dems learned something in 2022.
Exactly the point here, Jay...a flip of NC neutralizes any grotesque hanky-panky, vote-nullifying shite in GA, and the Harris-Walz ticket can afford to up the spending in NC with a better-than-even shot at taking its 16EV, and making the overall EC math a bit more comforting for our side.
Interesting how polls are diverging at the moment, where some polling has Dems leading in GA and losing in NC, others have just the reverse.
We have to keep our ‘foot on the gas’. tRump is literally a demented grifter and is only in it for the money and adulation. The Dems are there to help make the country a better place to live.
Also, FWIW, the latest Nate Silver poll results in PA shows a slight "softening" for H-W, where one poll shows a tie, another a 1% tRump lead, but those figures reversed based on earlier pre-DNC results...so, basically a dead-heat.
Harris/Walz need to do a few Georgia style bus tours through central and western PA and if stretched thin and split the team, send Walz into VFW Halls, union halls, diners, barber shops, and fall festivals.
Also, in NC Mark Robinson is so awful a candidate for Repubs, that the Dem Josh Stein has taken a decent lead in the polls, and could help the Harris-Walz ticket over the line with a W.
Robinson is horrendous. A Holocaust denier and abortion ban lover who thinks women do not belong in leadership positions. He's big on guns and would happily deny rights to LBGTQ citizens. He's the guy who said in a church that some people (liberals) need killing. If he manages to pull off a win, I don't know how I could keep living in NC.
Was on the browser site for a while as older iPad mini didn't support latest app rev., and did like the comment edit feature there...but just found navigating it cumbersome and slooooow, took ages to load pages, while app is very responsive. Thanks for your response.
I love that Harris has closed the polling gap but my hope is that none of us take anything for granted. if you want to win a race, you have to be at full speed when you cross the finish line — not slow down as you approach the finish line. As such, we have to heed the advice of the Obama's and others from the convention. Head down. Working hard. Getting out the vote. ignoring the bull shit.
Dont care for polls. Don't even care what Mango Mussolini is doing. The sooner we turn him off and tune him out, the better we all feel, the better we will all be. And there is the added bonus that if we stop clicking on the stories about his bull shit infantile antics, the sooner the press will stop running them. Heinz will make a ton of extra money in ketchup sales and he will implode.
For those worried about a violent coup — Im more concerned about election boards and state legislatures and violence at state capitols more so than D.C. Democrats need to make sure they are prepared with the legal team in place. Biden will have the National Guard on the ready as we head towards January 6. Plus — all of the pieces of crap who engineered the coup (the planners who were on the ground) are in prison. Mango Mussolini talks a good game about being tough but he is the softest, weakest punk scum bag in the kiddie pool. We have to be the bigger kids and simply take his ass down.
Thank goodness — because even though our courts have been compromised to a degree with the Aileen Cannon's of the world, the battle will take place in court and I believe more so at state level than federal.
Ohio here. I know my state went for trump in 2016 and 2020, but we elected Obama in 08 and 12. I wish the campaign would not write us off.
I think it's well known that we passed a State constitutional right for abortion AND legalized rec marijuana in 2023. Maybe we're not as red as everyone thinks.
This November, we will have a fair districting issue on the ballot which should get centrists and progressives to the polls. Also, there have been numerous State GOP corruption scandals, so reasonable Republicans may have had enough.
I hope so too, Holly, up and down the ballot. We have 3 state Supreme Court seats up for grabs and need balance there, we also desperately need to re-elect Senator Sherrod Brown!
How much grassroots enthusiasm is there currently in OH? I know that there was a boatlooad of grassroots activity in 2023 for the two ballot initiatives in August and November. Here are some ways that we can all help with OH:
Postcard opportunities in OH:
Field Team 6 (www.fieldteam6.org) has a voter registration campaign in OH for OH-01,OH-09, and OH-13. They have almost 9500 names and addresses left out of original 30K
Ohio Get Out The Vote!!: Let’s get Democrats out to vote early to support Senator Brown and Democratic members of Congress in Ohio! We are making sure infrequent and newly registered voters in Ohio’s 1st, 9th and 13th Congressional Districts know early voting starts October 8! The script focuses on voting logistics and contains an evidence-based social pressure sentence. Please write and hold these postcards to mail between September 23 and October 5.
OH Volunteer Opportunities in Mobilize (virtual and in person):
Donate to Candidate campaigns or donate to Blue Ohio (https://blueohio.org/) which is raising money for cash-strapped candidates running in state legislative races.
I was part of Obama’s squeak through in NC in 2008. I remember the exhilaration. I now live in a blue town in a blue state. I am currently writing postcards for BlueWave to get out the vote in Georgia! 2000 post cards to go out on Tuesday thanks to my amazing group of friends. We are doing this together!
I have lived in NC for most of my life. I was born and raised in Raleigh and have lived in Asheville for nearly 30 yrs. I pay a LOT of attention to politics. Here’s what I’ve seen and see in NC.
I’ve only seen two active Dem presidential candidates campaign in the western part of NC in Asheville: Barack Obama in 2008 (shook his hand at his rally) and Bernie Sanders in 2009 (hate I missed it).
trump has been in Asheville and nearby rural areas lately a LOT unfortunately.
I keep pestering Dem operatives and aligned orgs to pay more attention to the western part of the state. I understand why most of the resources are going to urban areas, but if we’re “leaving it all on the field” as Walz reiterated at the convention, I wish they or one would do a rally here in a blue dot in a sea of red rural voters. There ARE rural people who are tired of ConOLD. I see it. They tell me. A lot of people in this area need access to an event not a private fundraiser to get informed and engaged.
Trump committed another crime by using Arlington as a campaign prop. Why shouldn't he be arrested even if the employee does not want to press charges. Also, if arrested, doesn't that violate the terms of his bail?
I too have been wondering why the federal crimes that he and his staff violated aren’t being charged. Of course, we don’t know the full story here, but even if it’s just a staff member that was reminded of them then I’d be on board with that.
Thanks from NC. I have been involved in politics since 2008 in NC and I have NEVER seen such enthusiasm prior to any election. NC Women are Fired Up and Ready to Go!!!
Go go go!
We are trying.
My wife and I just moved (2021) to western NC, so here's two more votes for Harris!
Agree, Rowan Vicki B. And Thanks Jay Kuo for highlighting the possibility of North Carolina Flipping Blue. The people there are amazing. Jessica Craven in her “Chop Wood, Carry Water” substack urged us to listen to an interview with the Dem Organizer in Mecklenburg, North Carolina explain the ground game for Mecklenburg Dems to leverage there new volunteer enthusiasm into real political results for NC and thus for all of US. I was so inspired I sent a donation. https://substack.com/redirect/8cb7da2a-57a4-470b-85c9-003f6b95922e?j=eyJ1IjoiNWc5ZXcifQ.edw7_4Cgap8igwBWwjGUcONI5OgeJJWQbhGnSrR3Pfs
Harris has a two pronged approach to gaining rural votes that shows wisdom and strength. She shows up in several rural areas and then emphasizes her ideas by also having offices/outreach in rural areas. Her message is “She shows up and cares.” Very savvy.
This is what hope looks like 👍
We are 1000% purple but you often have to really look to see it. The GOP here has gerrymandered the Dems all to heck which apparently is totally legal and legit according to state and federal scotus but we are purple. And I will never forget Obama winning my state in 2008. I know we can help Harris here and I'm excited to know she will be focusing efforts here. She's already obviously outspent T here on advertising. For every one T commercial we see two Harris commercials. We're fired up and can't wait for election day.
The outrageous gerrymander story of NC is something that will be studied in government and political science classes for generations to come.
I’m sure you know of this documentary, Jay, but thought I’d mention and recommend it here. Slay the Dragon. “ A grassroots movement led by a young woman with no prior political experience gathers influence to protect voting rights and end gerrymandering, where electoral maps are re-drawn to serve the party in power.”
https://g.co/kgs/H2fLgVa
https://www.slaythedragonfilm.com/watch-at-home/
Along with Ohio's extreme corruption.
Fellow North Carolinian here - living in the epicenter for GOTV efforts, Mecklenburg County. We have the most registered Democrats in the state but one of the worst Dem turnout rates in the State! UGH! Listen to this excellent podcast where the host interviews Drew Cromer the 20-something chair of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party (MCDP). He has a plan and he has recruited lots of in- and out-of-state volunteers to implement it.
https://newfacesofdemocracy.org/drew-kromer-of-meck-dems-can-one-county-flip-north-carolina-blue/
Even before Biden passed the torch, our state party chair, Anderson Clayton had a 2-pronged approach to winning in NC: the aforementioned plan in Mecklenburg and an effort to engage rural voters by making sure there were Democratic candidates in races all over the state. She did a superb job - there are (I think) 198 races at the state and local level and there are candidates in all but a few. In 2024, it is the GOP that is leaving seats unchallenged in the Blue counties! I know of several NC house races in my area that have no one challenging them in November - but they are still coming out to canvass and help the Dem candidates running for Senate that overlap their district.
If you would like to help boost turnout and volunteer recriuitment in NC , there are plenty of phonebanks:
* https://www.mobilize.us/?event_type=2&org_ids=1545&org_ids=1535&q=Meck
* https://www.mobilize.us/?event_type=2&is_virtual=true&org_ids=37954&org_ids=37956&org_ids=37957&org_ids=38103&org_ids=37958
As Jay noted, one of the key things necessary to flip NC is to boost minority turnout. I'm writing postcards for Reclaim Our Vote (https://www.centerforcommonground.org/reclaim-our-vote) - there are also opportunities to text and phone bank.
Postcards require a brief online training and that you use their postcards - I purchased mine from a minority-owned printer with quick turnaround time and a minimum order of 50 postcards. ROV has a current campaign to BIPOC voters in Mecklenburg County with plenty of names & addresses still available. These are write and hold with postcards to be mailed between Sept 15 and Sep 30. (You provide the postage).
In addition, there is an upcoming Reclaim our Vote GOTV Update scheduled for next week -Sept 5 at 8pm ET over Zoom:
https://actionnetwork.org/events/rov-update?
Please help, if you can!! Thanks!
Great share! Fellow NC voter, just signed up!
Super!! 💙💙💙
This is what I was going to say. We are much bluer than we look. And sick and tired of being gerrymandered and voter-suppressed. See y’all at the polls!
I'm hoping she does another bus tour in NC, like she's done in Georgia and Pennsylvania. She could also have some fun by going to Florida! I was hoping she would go to Montana, but I'm not sure John Tester wants her to.
Def not Montana. But NC could be on the list!
I think the only issue with NC is the bad map that makes all the blue spots so far away from each other. (Its long past time Charlotte had a direct highway to Fayetteville!)
This NC gal sure hopes we're getting bluer by the day. The coastal counties (Brunswick, New Hanover, Carteret) are still pretty red. Not sure why, however, there is a lot of money over there. Not sure about Onslow county - home of Camp Lejeune. We're working hard though. Our D candidate for State Attorney General - Jeff Jackson - sends out lots of communications but still folks don't know much about him.
We have a home in Wilmington, and with the new transplants there, it is getting bluer all the time. We might be able to pull this off!
I’ve sent him money from California! The guy he’s running against is a loon!
I love your ‘ketchup-meet-wall’ comment
Jay--
So again I direct your attention to this idea now clearly stated in your post today:
But the Harris campaign is doing more than just talking about reaching these voters. In neighboring Georgia, the campaign is already running the playbook of Sen. Raphael Warnock, whose winning 2022 strategy was not only to score big in Atlanta but to work hard to lose by less in other parts of the state. Principal deputy Harris campaign manager Quentin Fulks is himself a rural Georgia native, and he is looking to replicate that strategy in North Carolina.
“You have to really stave down margins and go places even when you don’t think you can win it outright,” Fulks told Politico. “You know you’re going to lose that county, but just showing up there can sometimes be the difference between 5 to 10 percentage points, or sometimes just putting an office there.”
I continue to be mystified as to why the Dems do not invest money in PEOPLE not just geographic counties, people who might lose but also represent a promising future. Here I mean Shawn Harris who is challenging MTG for her House seat. https://www.shawnforgeorgia.com
Black, retired military, businessman. Why would they not put money and a bit of time underneath his campaign and give him a leg up next go around? And that is assuming he cannot compete this time?
Agree. Had the party invested in Colorado District 3's Democratic candidate Adam Frisch in 2022, he might not have lost (by only 546 votes). I don't know if the party is investing in her current Democratic opponent in District 4 but it definitely seems worth the gamble, considering the majority of votes in the primary were split by her five opponents. It seems likely that had she had only one opponent in the primary, she would have lost. Here's hoping the Dems learned something in 2022.
I had to ask Siri about meaning of “stave”, only in the south!
Me, too, Charles. Seems like 'shave' would have been a better word choice than 'stave.'
No it wouldn’t have been.
I think Siri is mistaken about that. It’s in common usage in a swath of southern Oregon.
Siri didn’t say, “only in the south’ that was my input and attempt at humor, having growed up down there!
Exactly the point here, Jay...a flip of NC neutralizes any grotesque hanky-panky, vote-nullifying shite in GA, and the Harris-Walz ticket can afford to up the spending in NC with a better-than-even shot at taking its 16EV, and making the overall EC math a bit more comforting for our side.
Interesting how polls are diverging at the moment, where some polling has Dems leading in GA and losing in NC, others have just the reverse.
To me it means we are basically tied and should act like we’re down 2.
We have to keep our ‘foot on the gas’. tRump is literally a demented grifter and is only in it for the money and adulation. The Dems are there to help make the country a better place to live.
Agree. The convicted felon is also in the race to stay out of prison!
Also, FWIW, the latest Nate Silver poll results in PA shows a slight "softening" for H-W, where one poll shows a tie, another a 1% tRump lead, but those figures reversed based on earlier pre-DNC results...so, basically a dead-heat.
Harris/Walz need to do a few Georgia style bus tours through central and western PA and if stretched thin and split the team, send Walz into VFW Halls, union halls, diners, barber shops, and fall festivals.
Also, in NC Mark Robinson is so awful a candidate for Repubs, that the Dem Josh Stein has taken a decent lead in the polls, and could help the Harris-Walz ticket over the line with a W.
Robinson is horrendous. A Holocaust denier and abortion ban lover who thinks women do not belong in leadership positions. He's big on guns and would happily deny rights to LBGTQ citizens. He's the guy who said in a church that some people (liberals) need killing. If he manages to pull off a win, I don't know how I could keep living in NC.
Can't edit...referring to NC Gov.'s race.
Copy, delete, edit, repost.
You're right...time-pressed!
You can edit when you open Substack in a browser. I don’t even use the app anymore.
Was on the browser site for a while as older iPad mini didn't support latest app rev., and did like the comment edit feature there...but just found navigating it cumbersome and slooooow, took ages to load pages, while app is very responsive. Thanks for your response.
I agree. It is more cumbersome. I tired of going back and forth to edit, though. I’m used to it now.
Take a look at Kansas. Much more purple than the experts assume.
Yes! The Kansas Women for Kamala Harris FB page has grown to 22.5k in just weeks.
I love that Harris has closed the polling gap but my hope is that none of us take anything for granted. if you want to win a race, you have to be at full speed when you cross the finish line — not slow down as you approach the finish line. As such, we have to heed the advice of the Obama's and others from the convention. Head down. Working hard. Getting out the vote. ignoring the bull shit.
Dont care for polls. Don't even care what Mango Mussolini is doing. The sooner we turn him off and tune him out, the better we all feel, the better we will all be. And there is the added bonus that if we stop clicking on the stories about his bull shit infantile antics, the sooner the press will stop running them. Heinz will make a ton of extra money in ketchup sales and he will implode.
For those worried about a violent coup — Im more concerned about election boards and state legislatures and violence at state capitols more so than D.C. Democrats need to make sure they are prepared with the legal team in place. Biden will have the National Guard on the ready as we head towards January 6. Plus — all of the pieces of crap who engineered the coup (the planners who were on the ground) are in prison. Mango Mussolini talks a good game about being tough but he is the softest, weakest punk scum bag in the kiddie pool. We have to be the bigger kids and simply take his ass down.
Harris has 20x more lawyers ready than Biden had! I think they are on top of it and ready to fire back.
Thank goodness — because even though our courts have been compromised to a degree with the Aileen Cannon's of the world, the battle will take place in court and I believe more so at state level than federal.
I have been very concerned about the convicted felon’s lawyers so this is great news! Thanks Kuo!
Exactly. Election boards, state legislatures and a CORRUPT SCOTUS. This is what i fear, not the y'all qaeda brigade.
Y'all qaeda.. lolol
Haha Mark I’m serving notice of plagiarizing that perfecto term for the rw crazies 😹
Ohio here. I know my state went for trump in 2016 and 2020, but we elected Obama in 08 and 12. I wish the campaign would not write us off.
I think it's well known that we passed a State constitutional right for abortion AND legalized rec marijuana in 2023. Maybe we're not as red as everyone thinks.
This November, we will have a fair districting issue on the ballot which should get centrists and progressives to the polls. Also, there have been numerous State GOP corruption scandals, so reasonable Republicans may have had enough.
Go Ohio!
I was born and raised in Ohio and still have family there. I have faith that its citizens will do the right thing!
I hope so too, Holly, up and down the ballot. We have 3 state Supreme Court seats up for grabs and need balance there, we also desperately need to re-elect Senator Sherrod Brown!
How much grassroots enthusiasm is there currently in OH? I know that there was a boatlooad of grassroots activity in 2023 for the two ballot initiatives in August and November. Here are some ways that we can all help with OH:
Postcard opportunities in OH:
Field Team 6 (www.fieldteam6.org) has a voter registration campaign in OH for OH-01,OH-09, and OH-13. They have almost 9500 names and addresses left out of original 30K
Activate America (www.activateamerica.vote) - blurb from their website:
Ohio Get Out The Vote!!: Let’s get Democrats out to vote early to support Senator Brown and Democratic members of Congress in Ohio! We are making sure infrequent and newly registered voters in Ohio’s 1st, 9th and 13th Congressional Districts know early voting starts October 8! The script focuses on voting logistics and contains an evidence-based social pressure sentence. Please write and hold these postcards to mail between September 23 and October 5.
OH Volunteer Opportunities in Mobilize (virtual and in person):
https://www.mobilize.us/?org_ids=187&org_ids=1774&org_ids=2345&org_ids=6507&org_ids=33587&org_ids=36152&org_ids=37540&org_ids=37610&org_ids=37696&org_ids=37771&org_ids=37814&org_ids=38805&org_ids=39351&org_ids=37442
OH Volunteer Opportunities in Mobilize (virtual only):
https://www.mobilize.us/?is_virtual=true&org_ids=187&org_ids=1774&org_ids=2345&org_ids=6507&org_ids=33587&org_ids=36152&org_ids=37540&org_ids=37610&org_ids=37696&org_ids=37771&org_ids=37814&org_ids=38805&org_ids=39351&org_ids=37442
Donate to Candidate campaigns or donate to Blue Ohio (https://blueohio.org/) which is raising money for cash-strapped candidates running in state legislative races.
I am in Ohio 1, working hard to re-elect our congressman Greg Landsman.
I was part of Obama’s squeak through in NC in 2008. I remember the exhilaration. I now live in a blue town in a blue state. I am currently writing postcards for BlueWave to get out the vote in Georgia! 2000 post cards to go out on Tuesday thanks to my amazing group of friends. We are doing this together!
I have lived in NC for most of my life. I was born and raised in Raleigh and have lived in Asheville for nearly 30 yrs. I pay a LOT of attention to politics. Here’s what I’ve seen and see in NC.
I’ve only seen two active Dem presidential candidates campaign in the western part of NC in Asheville: Barack Obama in 2008 (shook his hand at his rally) and Bernie Sanders in 2009 (hate I missed it).
trump has been in Asheville and nearby rural areas lately a LOT unfortunately.
I keep pestering Dem operatives and aligned orgs to pay more attention to the western part of the state. I understand why most of the resources are going to urban areas, but if we’re “leaving it all on the field” as Walz reiterated at the convention, I wish they or one would do a rally here in a blue dot in a sea of red rural voters. There ARE rural people who are tired of ConOLD. I see it. They tell me. A lot of people in this area need access to an event not a private fundraiser to get informed and engaged.
Edit: Bernie Sanders came to Asheville in 2019.
You make a good point. I hope the Harris/Walz campaign is listening!
I love it when you break things down like this. It connects me to what’s going on. I look to you (and a few others) for this. I am grateful.
Trump committed another crime by using Arlington as a campaign prop. Why shouldn't he be arrested even if the employee does not want to press charges. Also, if arrested, doesn't that violate the terms of his bail?
At least he has injured himself further politically with this stunt.
His use of Arlington for political purposes is likely a violation of the Hatch act and should be prosecuted as such.
He obviously has no regard for the Hatch Act since he has violated it numerous times talking with his buddies from countries overseas.
And using the White House grounds for his damn nomination acceptance speech in 2020! Still burns my aging butt.
Many “smaller” violations throughout those years by the orange gang of horribles.
He thought that mean Escape hatch :)
I too have been wondering why the federal crimes that he and his staff violated aren’t being charged. Of course, we don’t know the full story here, but even if it’s just a staff member that was reminded of them then I’d be on board with that.