04 October 2020

An Open Letter to the Biden North Carolina Campaign

Dear Joe Biden Campaign in North Carolina,


I’m a CEO and a business owner and a Democrat. I live in a swing district (southeast Charlotte) in a swing state (North Carolina) in an historic and unpredictable election. Here’s my experience with your local campaign:


My area is blanketed in Trump/Tillis (senate)/Bishop (representative) signs along roadways, conveying a visual impression that my area is in the bag for Trump. (And as you know, now more than ever, perception drives and even creates reality.) 

My Biden-supporting neighbors are disheartened and demoralized. They’re complaining they can’t even get stuff like bumper stickers. It took me TWO MONTHS to get mine when I donated. So I finally bought a ton off Amazon and have been driving all over south Charlotte delivering them to people upon request in response to my NextDoor posting.

To address the signs issue, I contacted the local campaign office and volunteered to put up Biden signs all over town along heavy traffic routes. Their response? “Sir, if you’d like to buy yard signs, they’re $25 each. Thanks for calling.” <click>

So I tried to find the area or even state campaign website. Apparently you haven’t heard of SEO and/or don’t have such sites because the closest result I found was a 2018 landing page for a speaking engagement Biden was doing in Raleigh. Ugh.

I finally found a FB group and had to request to join. (Request pending as of this writing.)

I can find no Twitter account for Biden NC. (I have 35,000 Twitter followers, so I had hoped to use my account as a megaphone for them, but you can’t amplify a non-existent voice, right?)

As an expert in both project management and digital marketing, I’m absolutely appalled at this experience and what it says about your campaign’s ability to execute a ground operation and to compete on digital platforms, and am starting to feel the local campaign is doing everything it can to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

I’m not doing anything else - financially or operationally - to assist a local campaign operation that makes it this hard to help it and that seems determined to fail in this must-win election.

Reach out if you want help. I’ll be happy to pitch in.

Respectfully,
Christopher Hughey