Our year in politics

review and reflection

Belated Thanksgiving greetings from the other side of our holiday, in which we were lucky to visit Sky and crew in Richmond, Mamie and Grampa in Walkerton, and Nana and Grandpa in Herndon. I’m not always sure it makes sense to drive our kids all over creation for every holiday, but then I think back on my own memories of watching snow falling from the back bedroom at Granny’s house in Lewisburg (which seemed so far away!), or playing football or hide-and-seek with my cousins in Portsmouth, or following behind Uncle Skipper in an impromptu Easter parade, and I know our girls are storing up memories they will return to when they’re my age or older: feeding ginger snaps to Sammy the horse, running around with their cousins, ice skating in Reston Town Center, singing in church with their grandparents.

Today I want to write down what we’ve done in the public sphere of politics since last winter, successful and unsuccessful. A record, but also a reflection about going forward. Because I will admit that I am tired, and I know many others who are understandably even more tired than I am. I am devastated, full stop, about the presidential election and the scary future in store for us.

The first thing I did this morning was read this major, damning piece about Pete Hegseth by Jane Mayer, and I encourage you to read it too—to read and learn about these supremely dangerous cabinet nominees and do everything you can to register your opinion with your senators. (I’m back on my routine of calling Thom Tillis on the daily.)

But by seeing things through the lens of a calendar year, going all the way back to January and forward to now, December 2, a whole year that is not even quite finished yet, I can also see a bigger and more hopeful picture.

This past January, we began working with a group of people in Chatham County to support our local teachers’ union’s spring campaign. They were asking for big but necessary things: significant raises for all teachers and staff, and for the ability of teaching assistants and bus drivers to be hired separately (so that bus drivers can focus on driving the bus, and teachers can focus on teaching). The goal was not just making work better and more livable for teachers and school staff, but to stop the flow of our teachers/staff/bus drivers into better-paying jobs and districts.

In February, I attended a Down Home boot camp with friends working on this campaign. We learned about cutting an issue down to size, building a coalition of stakeholders, identifying and lobbying people in power, and creating winnable campaigns. This weekend boot camp was so helpful—really the best-planned, most inclusive and impressive traing I’ve ever attended.

March through June, we campaigned. We collected signatures, talked to neighbors, met with union members, made signs, spoke at school board meetings, convinced others to speak. The school board voted to request $2700 raises for all teachers, and $500 for all staff. Next we pivoted to the county commissioners. We spoke to them, spoke publicly at county commissioner meetings, made signs. In June, commissioners voted for $2000 raises for teachers, $500 for staff. Though that was not everything we campaigned for, it was a huge win, and made a difference in both retaining excellent veteran teachers and recruiting talented new ones.

In the summer, we began to pivot to state and national politics. Though we knew we’d have less influence there, we also knew that on-the-ground, grassroots organizing and door-knocking was absolutely crucial—but so is fundraising so that campaigns have what they need to spread the word about their work. To keep it short, here’s what else we did:

-I attended a County to County fundraiser for Mo Green, so I could hear in person his plans for education in our state and share what I learned with Richard.

-I gave away posters and zines made by the wonderful folks at Voting Arts Lab and spoke about voting at literary events I attended with Bea.

-Bea and I participated in and donated books and two kayak trips to an authors’ fundraiser hosted by our friends Jill McCorkle and Tom Rankin, which raised money for Josh Stein and other NC Democrats.

-I spoke alongside others at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser, also hosted by Jill and Tom.

-I made short videos about Mo Green and his dangerous opponenet for Cardinal and Pine, which they edited and turned into TikToks.

-I donated to the Granville County Democrats in honor of my friend Liz Purvis, who leads this important rural work with enormous talent and passion.

-Bea, Harriet, Richard, and I all did a lot of weekend canvassing with friends in Granville, Nash, and Chatham counties. Canvassing can look a lot of different ways—you can phone bank, knock doors, or go to fairs/festivals and hand out info. We tried it all and liked the in-person work best.

-Richard trained and worked as a Democratic poll observer, alongside others (including a former student of mine!).

-I published three different op-eds, two for NC’s Cardinal and Pine (the first about Mo Green, the second about the importance of communicating with family about voting), and one for the New York Times about bats, Project 2025, and the now-imperiled CDC.

-We voted early and took Bea and Harriet to Kids Vote so they could vote too.

-Last week, Richard worked to help with ballot certification for challenged ballots cast for NC Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. Her Republican opponent has challenged the validity of some 60,000 votes cast by North Carolinians, including Justice Riggs’s own mother. Smart, dedicated lawyers like Richard and so many others have been volunteering throughout this election season.

We live in North Carolina, the most racially gerrymandered state in the country, a state with a long and recent history of voter suppression and a Republican party that is determined to win at any cost. I knew that the odds were stacked high against us. But I went into election day extremely hopeful that NC would vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Not just hopeful but… confident? I told people, “she’s going to win. I know it.” I think I said it here. I talked to others working full-time on grassroots organizing who said it and believed it too.

We were wrong about the national election, and our whole state and every other state will pay the awful price. But we weren’t wrong about:

-Our whole community’s commitment to paying teachers and school staff more fairly.

-The ability of a small group of people to make a big difference by working strategically and in partnership with local leaders.

-The power of unions.

-Our state’s unwillingness to elect completely unqualified MAGA firebrands—like an insurrectionist Mom for Liberty to lead our department of public instruction or a homophobic and sexist lunatic for governor—for statewide leadership roles.

-The ability of hardworking and strategic local leaders like Liz, Cat, Jill, and SO MANY OTHERS to break the supermajority. We are so proud that we canvassed for newly elected leaders Bryan Cohn and Terence Everitt. We are so happy that we canvassed for Mo Green, and so grateful that he won!

-The incredible impact of groups like Down Home, County to County, and Neighbors on Call on local and statewide elections. Which we will carry forward into 2026.

-The fact that every vote counts. Allison Riggs won by just a few hundred votes—we are celebrating that victory even as we work to protect it!

-Every. Vote. Counts. Tricia Cotham, a turncoat elected as a Democrat who later “supported Republican overrides enabling new abortion restrictions after 12 weeks, hundreds of millions of dollars in public spending on private school vouchers, and other GOP priorities,” won her newly-drawn (safer) seat by a mere 213 votes.

I haven’t been reading much about “what went wrong” for the Democrats because I’m not into hairshirts or the like. There’s obviously a problem when practically the whole country veers rightward, but I also know that’s not true everywhere. Chatham County, for one—already left-leaning—went slightly more left. Alamance County—very red—went ever so slightly left too. What we saw on the ground in both of those places? People working very hard all year long, who see politics and governance not as a season but as a responsibility of citizenship, carried for ourselves and others who may not have the same voice or time, but share the same needs. Good public schools. Freedom and safety and healthcare for all. Fair pay. Clean air and water. Climate recovery. Transparent and honorable leadership.

We’re gonna keep on with our work because we have to, but also because we see that it works. I’m going to think more about unions and how leaning into that identity (even in a “right to work” state like NC) can make a difference. I’m going to keep learning from people I admire, like Dreama Caldwell, Sohnie Black, and Isabell Moore. What worked for you, in your community, this year? What do you plan do do more of?

Next weekend, we’ll have a big books roundup and some other fun ideas. Stay tuned!