Thread: Alright folks, now that a few weeks have passed since the election, let's talk about the Edney campaign and the unlikely Election Twitter debacle that surrounded our campaign for NC House District 113.

Let me say first and foremost that I have no regrets with this campaign. We had a top tier staff, an incredible candidate, and an operation that had never been seen before for this district. This was my 5th campaign and I am so grateful that I was able to be a part of this.

@EricPerless and I started to use our platform here on Twitter to promote Sam's campaign, largely through memes that we put together. We were surprised at the following we built up in those first few weeks for a Red district in Western North Carolina from across the country.

We came into this race with the understanding that we were far from the favorites. This seat hadn't been contested with a professional operation since 2008, and folks like Eric, @GraysonForNC, and myself knew how a lack of investment has destroyed rural party infrastructure.

Nevertheless, we were committed to trying to win this thing, to running the best campaign possible, and to developing lasting infrastructure to help political campaigns for years to come.

Our campaign broke every record ever set for fundraising in this district, without taking a cent of PAC money. Our donations were overwhelmingly from within district, often from folks who had never given to a political candidate before, because they were excited by our campaign.

Our campaign made over 70,000 phone calls to voters, largely thanks to our incredible paid interns and phone bankers. Most arent on Twitter, but much recognition should be given to @maggiebehm, @aditinnnn, @aaron__daum, @EnglundNikko, @wendyyy_wuuu, and @TheKeatonB for their work

For the majority of our interns, this was their first ever campaign experience whatsoever. We were incredibly proud to help introduce and elevate a young and diverse team of operatives.

By the end of our campaign, our team had included first generation immigrants, multiple members of the LGBTQ community, multiple different races and ethnicities, differently-abled individuals, and folks ranging from 14 years old to their late seventies.

Our campaign captured incredible attention and led to investment in our area for the first time in over a decade.

But with that attention also came criticism, condescension, and cynicism from supposed "allies" that surprised us.

Many prominent ET pundits said that our campaign was a waste of time, money, and resources. By extension, they claimed that our team was wasting their time. This has been amplified after the election, with many snarky comments directed towards myself and other members of our team

Rural Democrats across the country got walloped in a way that few were expecting. We were not immune from this. Yet the election results of races around HD113 show why we fought so hard to defend our work.

Many ET pundits who told us that our race was unwinnable confidently stated that other rural Dem incumbents were favored to win re-election. Joe Sam Queen only got 5% more of the vote than we did, and yet we were supposed to believe that race was Lean D and ours was Safe R?

Folks wanted it both ways, but we knew that there was no universe where both were true. By the end internal metrics had us exactly where we ended up: 5% behind JSQ. And because, like most folks, we believed JSQ was going to win, we knew that meant we were also competitive.

Obviously that didn't end up being the case: the environment was much worse for Dems than practically anyone expected. Many candidates that were expected to win didn't. That came not from a lack of effort from their staffers, but from the long-term consequences of divestment.

Elections do not occur in a vacuum. They are the culmination of the continued work and effort (or lack thereof) of candidates and operatives who may not see the fruits of their labor for many years or even decades. Those who work campaigns understand this and know it firsthand.

You cannot shrug away the blood, sweat, and tears of those who work on a losing campaign as a waste of time. The work of folks like @zachary_godwin, @ZachFinley, @afranklinlee, @MikeCareccia helped keep the future of our party alive, even though our campaigns didn't win this time

HD113 became a debacle on ET not because of the district or our campaign. It became a debacle because how we were treated with such condescension and vitriol from certain "analysts" on here epitomized the arrogance of the pundit class that all campaign staffers experience.

The experiences that Eric, @aaron__daum, and I had on this platform are also those of so many staffers, especially those working in red seats or other longshot campaigns. Staffers are sneered at by those behind the screen, who see this all as nothing more than a game.

Seeing this all as a game is a disturbing mindset, but one that is so pervasive amongst those on this platform. They either don't understand or don't care that politics literally determines whether or not Americans live or die; whether they are able to live good lives or not.

They reject doing this work themselves, and yet still condescend to those who do. And it leaves us who work on campaigns angry, because they don't understand what is at stake.

They haven't tried to comfort the woman who lost her son to cancer because he couldn't afford healthcare. They haven't knocked on the door of a trailer and seen both the tired and jaded eyes of somebody the system has left behind and the innocence in the eyes of their child.

They haven't seen the elderly women who press a dollar into a candidate's hand, all they can afford on social security, because they believe in the campaign. Or the disillusioned voter who casts a ballot for the first time in their life because they believe in a better future.

Those pundits have none of those stories, and yet staffers have hundreds if not thousands of them. And yet the pundit wonders why the staffers care so much. Why don't they just look at the past election results or the voter registration numbers?

The staffer knows that if their community doesn't receive investment, there will never be a chance to stop the ongoing suffering of so many in their community. The pundit flippantly sends those suffering people to die, uncared for and abandoned, all because of the color on a map.

The fight for everywhere must never stop. Those who fight in the trenches for every American, no matter where they are, know this. Those who don't need to get the fuck out of the way.

To those of y'all who have tried to bring us down after this election: I see you, and so do so many others. All you do is show your priorities and your true character.