John, I mentioned over the weekend that the passage of House Bill 2 eight years ago was an activating moment for me. I’d always known I wanted to find a way to make a difference in our state—that was a big part of why I studied economics, to learn more about the role that government should play in our society and our economy.
But watching our elected leaders attack our neighbors like that convinced me that making a difference meant rolling up my sleeves and actually getting my hands dirty. The leadership we had didn’t represent our people. It wasn’t what we’d signed up for. So, that year, I started exploring the idea of running for office, and in 2018, I launched a campaign for legislature, fought hard, and won, unseating an incumbent Republican and becoming the first Democrat to represent South Charlotte in the modern era.
And you know, John, it’s kind of funny—I’ve occasionally been called a broken record, but I was looking back over my old campaign website from 2018 and I really have been running on basically the same platform since I got involved: investing in infrastructure, investing in education, and investing in economic mobility.
I’ve refined the way I talk about things, but I’m still talking about the same things, and I don’t anticipate that changing any time soon. You sometimes see politicians “pivot” when they move from a primary election to a general election—they take all the incredible stuff they’ve been talking about for months and months and they water it down because they think it’ll scare off undecided, more moderate voters if they don’t.
But I’ve never really felt the need to do that. I’ve always felt you should stand by your beliefs, make an honest case for them, and if you offer people a vision that resonates, they’ll stick with you. It’s what’s carried me through three legislative elections and now the primary for Treasurer, and it’s what’ll flip this seat in November.
I’ll keep honing how I talk about things, sure. I can always be clearer—and all of y’all who get my emails know as well as anyone that I rarely use one word where five will do—but I’ll never stop talking about supporting teachers and state employees, about supporting local governments in building much-needed infrastructure, or about creating the opportunity our people so desperately need by making an investment in our communities.
It’s what we needed in 2018, it’s what we need in 2024, and I’ll keep beating that drum until we get it.
And John, if you haven’t already, I hope I can count on you to join me in spreading that message. I think we’ve seen ample evidence that our message, the same one I’ve been running on since 2018, is a winning message, but by far our biggest need over the next seven months is going to be raising the funds necessary to actually get it in front of people.
And the fact is, my Republican opponent dumped $500,000 of his own money into his campaign account when he filed for Treasurer, and another $250,000 in at the beginning of the year. We can reasonably expect that he’ll double that for the general election, but that’s not how I’ve ever wanted to run. Our campaign has to be funded by real grassroots and real voters—because that’s how we build a campaign that can win.
Our message can be as strong as we like, but if we don’t get it in front of more voters than our opponent does, that won’t matter. But making that happen is going to depend on grassroots support from folks just like you. The good news is, I know we can get there—in the primary, we set records for both the number of individual donations and the amount of money raised from individual donors for a Treasurer’s race.
If we keep that momentum up, I know we can get where we need to be and afford to spread our message the way we need to—but if you can, I really need you to make a contribution to help us get there. Every dollar helps bring us closer to our goal, and every dollar helps bring North Carolina closer to a government that works for everyone, no matter who they are.
