Friends,

Yesterday I knocked doors in Gastonia.

Late in the afternoon, I met a woman who works at McDonald’s at a truck stop that’s open 24 hours. The night before she had worked the night shift: 8pm to 5am.

She said they stay busy all through the night, with truckers arriving in a steady stream even in the late hours.

She also mentioned that it was her birthday.

I asked her about the hardest part of her job and she told me it was keeping good employees. I asked her what made someone a good employee and she said, “Showing up on time makes you good, but being nice to people makes you great.”

I told her I was running to represent her in Congress and asked what I could do to make her life better.

She looked down and took a long pause. Then she said, “Just make it better for my kids. That’s who I want you to help.”

The truth is, I think there are some things we could do to help make her life better (paid family leave comes to mind…), but I thought her answer was remarkable. She had every reason to make that moment about her, but her first thought went to her family.

So I gave her a quick list of what I thought we could do for her kids:

• Focus on early childhood education.
• Make sure teachers earn a salary that will let them raise their own family, so we have more great career teachers.
• Create a world-class apprenticeship network designed to give young people career options that don’t require a four-year degree.

I could have gone on, but that was my quick list to her. She nodded and agreed.

Then she said something that got my full attention:

“I get emails from Mr. Trump every day. Not sure if he writes them, but I hope he wants to help like you do.”

As gently as I could, I said, “I’m not sure he writes those emails.” She nodded.

We have to win this race for her — even if it means she votes for my opponent, which she probably will.

She — and her kids — deserve better representation, someone who will actually listen, someone who has an actual sense of what being helpful would mean.

The best way you can help us do that is to support us through this email, if possible.

If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:

Unlike some other folks, I’m writing this personally.

To me, that matters, the same way knocking 1,000 doors matters. It’s about being there to do the work; it’s about being a real person in this job and not just a pile of talking points.

You can support that approach here, and it would mean a lot.

Best,
Jeff