Tomorrow, we complete the first wave of county organizational buildout for the campaign with a meeting in Williamston, NC (Martin County). This will complete 14 such meetings collectively targeting all 100 counties. The response has been great and we have signed up several thousand people to assist us in our county specific campaign activities moving forward. This has been very time consuming, but well worth it.
Now we turn our attention to a deeper dive with each of our county leaders (chairs and co-chairs) and give them the tools, info and direction to begin organizing county by county. This is an old school way of campaigning, but when combined with modern technology – it is a devastating one-two punch with the message delivery we aim to build for the campaign. Can’t wait to get this organization in constant motion.
Our latest round of endorsements included most members of the State Senate. This is after we released a sizable amount of endorsements from our colleagues in the State House (over 50) and the six members of our Congressional delegation. We are encouraged by the overwhelming support coming from so many directions.
Rumors abound that we will have a primary opponent. A State House member from the Wilmington region is making the rounds and the phone calls necessary to gauge statewide support. We had hoped to clear the primary field to allow us to maintain our focus and resources on the general election, but have always anticipated a primary opponent. We have a strong contingency plan should this primary develop and will meet it head-on. Our entire campaign apparatus was forged with a primary mindset. When you win your first win by .25 of 1 percent, you know the drill when it comes to hand to hand combat in the political arena. Primaries are won and lost on the ground. Thus our continual emphasis on building the best ground game in the state. We have a great team. They are battle tested, trained, and ready. Will make it fun.
The NC GOP convention is coming up in June in Concord. I always enjoy our time at these meetings. We will have our traditional coffee social immediately after the dinner on Friday night of the convention. We are looking forward to meeting with all of our friends – both old and new.
There are lots of people requesting Dan Forest campaign materials these days. Hold tight. New stuff is coming, but not until we formally announce for the office. We are excited about some of the new stuff we will be putting out.
Fundraising is going well. All pistons are firing there, with a steady drumbeat of fundraising events scheduled virtually every week. Resource management is key, but that starts with a steady flow of revenue coming in. I like where we are this far out. We are ahead of pace and outpacing our last Republican predecessor at this point in his Governor’s race. We need to keep that momentum up during the summer months, which are notoriously slower in pace due to family vacations, etc. So far, so good.
We are making some staff additions to the campaign in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for that. We will also be moving our campaign office to a larger facility to accommodate the staff increase and volunteer load as our campaign moves to the more formal stage. I love my current office and the cool downtown vibe it has, but I can’t wait to get into the mack-daddy of all offices starting in July.
More to report soon, but this is where we are right now.