Brittany Newton, North Carolina House District 46
These are the Downballot Diaries – stories of and from some of the people Every State Blue is supporting this cycle.
We crowdfund support for underfunded Democrats running for state legislature – typically in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts in the country. We’re redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere.
We support people running hard in the hardest places.
Brittany Newton is one of those people. This is her story.
Brittany Newton, 31, is not afraid of hard work. She’s a single mom with two kids and four jobs: nursing assistant, human resources assistant, tax preparer, and nail technician. In the Army, she was a cargo specialist who operated heavy equipment. And now she’s pitching in to help her neighbors in southeastern North Carolina, where families are getting by on household incomes that are over 30 percent below the statewide median.
Three years ago, Newton began joining in community conversations about why working families can’t get ahead. Her neighbors in Whiteville, Columbus County, came from across the political spectrum, but they got together to focus on one issue—moving their community toward a living wage. Having dubbed themselves the Deciders (please stream the documentary!), they showed up in Raleigh to talk to their district’s representative. They were met by a closed door. “We were knocking on his door, calling, sending emails, and not even getting the generic response of, ‘Thank you for your email.’ We’re not getting anything. It’s just nothing coming back. How are you representing everybody if you’re not accessible?”
That’s when her neighbors began urging Newton to run for the state House seat. She talked to her parents, and after prayerful consideration, she decided to step up. Her top priority is bringing unity back to her district. And that’s what she sees happening: “I knock on people’s doors. I talk to everybody because, yes, I’m running as a Democrat, but when I win – because I like to say when I win – I’m going to be serving everybody. It’s not the little select groups that I’ll be serving. I feel like right now, with the incumbent, that is what’s happening, and that’s why we’re being left behind. People are being forgotten, and it shouldn’t be that way.”
Out knocking on doors, she says, “We’re having good conversations. And when I say I’m running for North Carolina House, they’re like, ‘wait, what? Let’s talk.’ It’s a whole other vibe. It’s a sense of… I know who you are. I trust you.”
Newton believes work should pay enough for individuals and families to thrive and points out that a living wage is at least $18.70 an hour, not the national minimum wage of $7.25, which is the current minimum wage in the state. She wants to help small businesses and prioritize working families over corporations. As a mother, she wants to invest in kids: better schools with better pay for teachers, a funding model that doesn’t hurt rural schools and a head start for every child. She believes healthcare is a necessity, not a luxury. One of the counties in her district ranks as one of the unhealthiest in the state. Rural areas don’t have enough medical providers, and hospitals are closing. The burden falls especially heavily on veterans who have to drive over an hour and a half to get care. Newton would also like to see expanded programs that promote food as medicine. And she doesn’t want young people to leave the area because they can’t find good jobs after college. She would like to see grants for entrepreneurs, protections for farmland, and funding to revitalize downtowns.
Newton is the first to admit running for office was intimidating. But she’s just approaching it the only way she knows how: hard work. Her only previous experience fundraising was plate sales at church. So she and her mom and aunties have held “plate sales.” For $12, people can buy a plate with homemade fried chicken, chicken and rice, potato salad, green beans, a slice of cake, and a drink. Last time, they sold over 300 plates, and when they started running out of potato salad, Newton was in the kitchen peeling potatoes. “These people paid for a full plate, and they are going to get everything I told them they’d get.” Newton and her family raised over $3,000 with the plate sale. “Not everybody who bought those plates was a Democrat,” she pointed out. “There were Republicans, too. Unaffiliated.”
“It’s been really eye-opening,” Newton says. “I go knock on doors and I get inspired. I’m supposed to be inspiring other people, but… I’m not saying that I know what Obama feels like, but when he was talking about hope, I’m like, this is what he was talking about. This is amazing. This is unity coming back.”
Clearly, Newton herself does inspire others. Her campaign has raised nearly $100,000 from individual donors, no corporate PACs.
Newton sees all the plates of food and all the dollars donated as conferring a responsibility on her: “When I win in November, it won’t be me focused on Democratic goals, it’s going to be me focused on the goals of people in Columbus and Robeson counties, because they’re the ones who elected me to be in office, and they’re the ones who need me, and they are the voices that I’m supposed to be taking to Raleigh.”
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