Durham County
“How can I trust you?”
It had just started raining during our virtual town hall in Durham when Otis asked one of the biggest questions of this campaign.
It was during our second town hall of the day. The first had been in-person (with masks + distance) at Durham Central Park. We had about 40 people for the in-person event and 125 for the virtual one.
And the conversations were great: a teacher told us about the importance of Title I funding, a high school student talked about college affordability, a doctor talked about how she was helping to lead an effort to allow schools to safely re-open by coordinating with different local groups.
We also talked about how it’s unacceptable to be the only developed nation in the world without universal health care, how rural and urban counties are both experiencing major shortages of affordable housing, and how North Carolina needs a climate action plan that leverages our state’s built-in advantages to accelerate our transition from fossil fuel and create good jobs while we’re at it.
But it really all comes back to the core of Otis’s question. So I want to use this post to feature that.
We’re not treating this campaign as just a big marketing effort. We want to use it as preparation for the job. That’s a different approach, and it involves being upfront about the fact that we don’t know everything about every part of the state and being diligent and sincere about listening to people to build a real agenda.
But the burden is completely on me to earn your support. That’s what this campaign is designed to do — not *ask* for your support, but actually *earn* it.
That’s why we’re making it a 100 county campaign — because there’s no way to earn your support without showing up.
So far we’ve been to Hoke, Yadkin, Transylvania, and Durham counties. I know people have asked if there’s a schedule of the full tour. While we can’t plan that far out, what we will do is a better job of letting people know a week in advance that we’re coming to their county. We want to hear from as many people as possible.
The best way to know when we’re coming is to sign up for an alert here: https://bit.ly/3kemg8b
See you on the campaign trail,
Jeff
