This is my third primary season in New Hampshire. After 2016, I swore I would leave the state before the next primary came around. Why? The primary can suck all the air out of the room, especially if one works in community organizing. Our usual leaders and members may be too busy following their favorite candidate around to come to meetings. Or, they may be attempting to shake hands with every candidate in a crowded field. Or, people of faith and good will are just so turned off by the hateful partisan environment created by some campaigns that they simply stay home and tune out!

So, you may ask, why I am still here, writing this blog?

2020 feels different for two reasons, first because this year GSOP is in partnership with our national affiliate Faith in Action on the LOVE 2020 Project. The LOVE 2020 Project sets up meetings between faith leaders and primary candidates to ask them to “De Fund Hate and Invest in Love”. These meetings flip the script of the usual candidate “forum” or “town hall”. No stump speeches allowed. Rather, the candidates listen to stories of real people’s lives and respond to those stories from their values. So far the meetings have been fun and productive. More specifics about these individual meetings will be forthcoming.

The second reason this season feels different is the campaign staff. This year the campaigns (most of them anyway) are chock full of young black and brown staffers. The staff are enthusiastic and engaging and rather than simply demanding access to our people – the usual tactic from previous primaries – this new breed of staff eagerly offer to help with community projects. Staff from the Buttigieg, Beto, Booker, Warren, and Castro campaigns have attended NH Interfaith Prayer Vigils for Immigrant families and some even joined in our Solidarity Walk for Immigrant Justice last month!

I look forward to sharing my experiences from this primary season with you through this blog. Stay tuned for more details from LOVE 2020!

#LOVE2020 #petebuttigieg #betoorourke #corybooker #elizabethwarren #juliancastro #GSOP