David Wilson Brown in the 10th Congressional District

I'm paying close attention to direct voter contact this year and to the candidates/county Democratic parties that are blazing that trail to good effect. Nothing beats door-knocking for winning elections -- nothing! The problem is the thousands and thousands of doors that a candidate and his/her campaign may never get around to knocking, but getting out there on the ground with platoons of volunteers and trying to knock every door can produce a rift in the Matrix. Especially in a year like 2018.

David Wilson Brown in
Forest City

So I notice the impressive direct-voter contact numbers for Democrat David Wilson Brown, who's running against Patrick McHenry in the 10th Congressional District. How impressive? Of all the NC Democratic Congressional candidates this year, Kathy Manning, running in the 13th CD against first-term Congressman Ted Budd, is tops in direct voter contact. Dan McCready, running in the 9th against preacherman Mark Harris, comes in second with impressive numbers. And David Wilson Brown ranks third, which is something of a shock because the 10th is on no one's list of potentially flippable congressional districts.

I did a profile of David Wilson Brown back in February (and of the incumbent McHenry), and you'll have to pardon me for quoting from part of that here:

David was a 1990s graduate of AppState, majoring in poly sci (he did a Washington internship with then Republican Congresswoman Sue Myrick). He works now in the information technology industry. He's 43 with a wife and two kids, a boy and girl, 10 and 6, and they live in McAdenville ("Christmas Town, USA"), east of Gastonia on I-85. He grew up in Charlotte.

He's also a realist and knows what a long-shot he is to beat McHenry, but Brown is animated by the same dramatic spirit of resistance that has surged through so much of America in the Age of Trump. "I can’t sit on the sidelines and do nothing,” he told Michael Barrett of the Gaston Gazette.

He's particularly offended by the way the Republican use "the common man" as a mere prop for "making their end goals .... They use the politics of fear to keep people from getting ahead." Brown needs to focus on McHenry's enabling of the payday lenders, who rip off the common man and the little guy and the working class like smash-and-grab burglars. “When I look at the things Republicans are voting on again and again, they are against working class people who are just trying to get by,” he said.

“I think we’re at a turning point in this next election where people are going to wake up and see that Republicans have used these fringe issues, that don’t affect people’s daily lives, to make voters think they care about what’s best for them.”