What We Won This Tuesday — Down Home Outliers in a Red Wave
On Tuesday night, our scrappy working-class members defied the national trends and scored dozens and dozens of wins across North Carolina. Today we are celebrating our working class members who fought, ran, won, and protected millions of North Carolinians from radical extremists last night. Even as we come to grips with the election of Trump, those of us at Down Home have grasped one undeniable truth. Our organizing works.
As we prepare to go through the storm, we remain committed to our course, as described in our theory of change:
“If we build the power of the multiracial working class in small town and rural NC, we can win improvements now and move toward a future that reflects our values.”
In a cycle where 90% of the nation’s counties moved appreciably to the right, Down Home’s rural counties bucked the trend, reducing the rate of rightward movement and effectively reversing in six counties. You can literally see our efforts in the circled outlier counties, representing the impact of Down Home’s year-round organizing and electoral work, on the NYT map below:
We are still crunching data, but compared to national averages, our counties bucked the trend by the following metrics:
- Alamance County overperformed by 4.3%
- Ashe County overperformed by 5.3%
- Cabarrus County overperformed by 5.8%
- Chatham County overperformed by approximately 6%
- Johnston County overperformed by 5.5%
- Transylvania overperformed by 6.1%
This is the power of year-round organizing
Down Home’s 2024 electoral program was the largest in our history, more than four times larger than our program in 2022. All told, our program covered 25 North Carolina counties and achieved the following metrics:
- 636,874 door knocks, representing 131% of our goal
- 779,017 phone calls from within our own program, exceeding our goal
- 1.7M phone calls total with allies, 230% of our goal
- 833,973 texts
- 1287 relational vote turnout leaders
- …as well as digital, mail, faith organizing, and narrative work
On election night, that power found expression in a range of cherished victories, including:
- Resoundingly defeating Mark Robinson and rejecting his extreme agenda. We elected Josh Stein by almost 15% in what was supposed to be the closest governor’s race in the nation. We want to stress that our work to define Robinson as an extremist had him down 5% BEFORE the CNN article hit.
- Defeating Michelle Morrow, the radical extremist who attempted to take control of North Carolina’s K-12 public schools. We elected our champion, Mo Green, by just 1.18% in a statewide race that Down Home and Public School Strong helped to elevate.
- The final seats that broke the Republican supermajority, giving Governor-elect Josh Stein a veto to protect North Carolinians from radical legislation, including abortion bans. As in 2022, the supermajority was broken by a single seat in Down Home’s turf. We narrowly won HD 24 in Wilson County by a total of 871 votes, where we knocked 59,079 doors and logged 9,293 conversations with voters.
Our statewide Public School Strong Voters also had a big night as we experimented with our first electoral cycle as a coalition. Across the state, 40 of our Public School Strong candidates were elected, including the following highlights:
- Alamance County elected Seneca Rogers and Down Home member candidate Tameka Harvey to the school board
- Johnston County elected Down Home member April Lee to the school board
- Person County elected Down Home member Jason Torian to the school board
Local race highlights included:
- Electing member Antoinetta Cash-Royster to the Person County commission by just 5 votes...we’re currently working on ballot cure
- Electing member Mark Speed to the Franklin County Commission
- Electing Mark Manning to the Pitt County Commission
So, What’s Next?
If you are looking for a way to dig in where you are, we invite you to take credit of these wins with us, and the responsibilities that come with them. We are surer than ever that our theory of change works, and aware that our communities will need Down Home more than ever as we fight for our safety, our freedom, and justice for all.
The coming months and years will bring a lot of pain and challenges, and Down Home’s members are committed to organizing through the crises. And yet, in completing the wins we outlined above, we have already positioned ourselves to continue to protect and advance the values of our rural, multiracial, working class communities in the face of these challenges.
Because of the work we’ve done…
- Women will have the autonomy to make decisions for themselves and their families with their doctors without uneducated, assuming input from the government;
- our children have access to well-funded and safe rural public schools, abundant with options and opportunities, well-paid teachers, and a curriculum that encourages open minds and open hearts for the future ahead of them;
- and we have a coalition of people in office who will fight tooth and nail for everything that we stand for.
Our organization is stronger today than we have ever been, fresh off the largest rural organizing drive this century in North Carolina, and you are a part of it, simply by reading this blog.
Are you still with us?
There are so many ways you can get involved. Dig in, and join Down Home to lay the groundwork for what’s ahead of us.
We’re sending you strength, purpose, and love as we enter a new political reality. Thank you for being a part of our community.
