I moved from my home in New York City to Philadelphia in November 2019, an admittedly “blue” city in a reliably unreliable state, where my time, effort and vote would pack the most punch.

I didn’t have an existing network of friends or professional contacts in the city but I swiftly found my way into a veritable army of progressive organizations mobilizing for the 2020 general election cycle.  I worked with a range of organizations in the field — everything from collecting signatures for ballot access to door knocking and deep canvassing. I was trained to use npgVAN’s suite of tools to carve canvassing turf and use miniVAN app to navigate in the field.) (Phone and SMS banking, relational organizing, door knocking and field canvassing and directing field canvassing operations.

Of course, the Covid-19pandemic was raging for much of the duration of the general election cycle, which essentially forced me to find alternative tools and methods to organize and mobilize on a digital landscape. As part of these efforts, supporting Biden for America’s virtual campaign, I opted to create a playful social media account to unite an unconventional niche segment of supporters: “dog people,” ie. dog owners and lovers. @BarksforBiden was unsophisticated account on Instagram that attracted nearly 10k followers. Operating without a budget, I engaged followers by generating compelling content, featuring tagged photos and fostered a sense of community, which facilitated its organic growth (no ads or for-purchase followers).  I applied the skills I developed while managing Barks for Biden (ex. analyzing user metrics, Insights, developing skills for social media optimization, broadening the types of contents I generated) to the next election cycle: Pennsylvania’s crucial US Senate race. Before John Fetterman filed his paperwork with the FEC and made it official, I created “Philly for Fetterman” (I’m a sucker for alliteration).I created accounts on multiple social media platforms to extend the scope of reach.

I worked in tandem with then-LG Fetterman’s skeletal campaign — including writing copy for official campaign use, while I maintained “Philly for Fetterman.” The accounts never attracted the same breadth of followers Barks for Biden, nor did I expect that they would; the first was a single account for a national election, the other was a geographically-targeted select group of active social media users, predisposed to supporting not only a Democrat in a midterm election cycle but, specifically, John Fetterman. While it’s never bad to have a large following, the relative intimacy of “Philly for Fetterman” (spanning most mainstream platforms, the network comprised approx 3.5k followers — a figure dwarfed by non-follower content engagement) and physical proximity (inherent to the brand) made it comparatively easy to organize street canvassing events in Philadelphia and to develop authentic relationships with followers.“Philly for Fetterman’s” enduring presence  engendered a sense of enthusiasm that was otherwise absent. Fetterman’s “Every County Every Vote” strategy meant that fewer resources were allocated to Philadelphia county. Per Fetterman’s strategy, the base in Philadelphia would be more than enough if he’d successfully driven up the margins in each of PA’s 66 other counties and lo and behold: Fetterman’s strategy was validated by the election results. Philly for Fetterman was a valuable and fully operational entity. It served as an outlet for Fetterman supporters to speak up , come together and take action in the absence of an official operations in the county.* I am proud of the work I did and thrilled that Pennsylvania is now represented by two strong Democrats in the United States Senate.*The campaign opened a Philadelphia field office near the Montgomery county borderline during the latter portion of the campaign.