Carolina Democracy

"And I Love Campaigning!"

March 07, 2022 JD Wooten Season 1 Episode 8
Carolina Democracy
"And I Love Campaigning!"
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Welcome back to Carolina Democracy! Today we discuss President Biden's historic nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court and how North Carolina legislative elections are shaping up now that candidate filing has closed. Then, I’m joined by Tracy Furman, a former small business owner,  Executive Director of Triad First Local, and at-large candidate for the Greensboro City Council.

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Tracy Furman: And I love campaigning. I love knocking on doors. I love meeting people. And she was like, okay, I hope you do it again. I was like, absolutely. I absolutely will. So fast forward, four years here we are doing it again.

[music]

JD Wooten: Welcome to Carolina Democracy. I’m JD Wooten, and today I’m joined by Tracy Furman, a former small business owner, chef, and accountant who currently serves as the Executive Director of Triad First Local, a non-profit that supports local, independently-owned businesses.  Tracy is running for an at-large seat on the Greensboro City Council. But first let’s talk about the U.S. Supreme Court and North Carolina legislative elections.

Last week, President Biden made history by nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, currently a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Jackson would be the first Black woman, the first former public defender, and only the 8th non-white man to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court in its more than 230-year history. While her nomination is groundbreaking in those ways, she’s not altogether unconventional either.  She attended Harvard for both undergrad and law school and held several federal clerkships, including one for Justice Breyer, the very person she’ll be replacing. While Justice Jackson will not change the balance of power on the Court right away, she is young and will likely be there for a very long time. In a notable ruling a few years ago on whether Congress had the power to compel the testimony of the former White House Counsel, Judge Jackson wrote: “Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings.” I’m going to go ahead and say that’s a great start for guessing where she comes down on issues directly impacting democracy.

Now, moving on to North Carolina legislative elections, candidate filing wrapped up this past Friday and there aren’t really any major surprises in this final week of filing. That said, at least a few things did happen right after the new maps were announced that I didn’t talk about last week, but which are worth mentioning, so I’ll hit those now.

As I discussed last week, when the trial court appointed special masters to redraw the General Assembly’s unconstitutional congressional map, it created a few more districts in which Democrats will likely be competitive.  One of those districts is near Charlotte—the new 14th Congressional District—covering southern Mecklenburg County and eastern Gaston County. It turns out this is State Senator Jeff Jackson’s home turf and he decided to jump in the race.

I’ve known Senator Jackson for several years, he was one of the first people to encourage me to run for the state senate in 2018, and he was there to mentor and support me at every turn through the ups and downs of campaigning. I was really excited when he announced his run for the U.S. Senate, and he ran a great campaign.  I also have a tremendous amount of respect for his decision to gracefully step out of that race in favor of former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, another person I greatly admire and who also helped me out in my 2020 race.  We really do have some great folks here in North Carolina.  Anyways, glad to see you back on the ballot Senator Jackson, and if you ever want to come on the show, I’m sure our listeners would love to hear from you.

Another surprise twist from redistricting was a major shift in the congressional districts around the Triangle.  Wake County now has one complete congressional district, District 2 with incumbent Democrat Deborah Ross, and part of another district—District 13—which also includes Johnston and parts of Wayne and Harnett Counties.  This is a true toss-up district and could go either way based on historic voter trends.  It’s also where State Senator Wiley Nickel lives, who was originally planning to run and replace the retiring Democrat David Price in District 4.  Senator Nickel’s another candidate I’ve known for several years and who was constantly supportive of my own campaigns.  If he had run in District 4, it would been part of a very crowded primary with several other excellent candidates. District 13 has a primary as well, but at least this way Democrats are fighting in two races that are potential wins instead of clustered in a single district. Senator Nickel is actually scheduled to be a guest in the near future, so I’ll save more about him for his interview.

Here's the important takeaway: Democrats can get over the finish line in District 13, whether that be Senator Nickel or anyone else, and we pick up District 14, again be that Senator Jackson or someone else, plus hold on to Districts 1, 2, 4, 6, and 12, Democrats will be in a much better place than we feared the case would be even just a few weeks ago!

Now, let’s talk about how the state legislative races are shaping up.  One interesting development was that freshman State Senator Sarah Crawford of Wake County has filed to run for State House District 66.  Senator Crawford’s senate district was changed dramatically in redistricting, and the vast majority of the area she currently represents will now be in a different district.  I gather that she decided to defer to another candidate with long ties to Granville County, which will now be the majority of her new district, and instead she’s going to run for the new house district in Wake County where she lives. 

Another notable filing, at least to me, was Angela Scioli, a prominent public education advocate and retired public school teacher in Wake County who also happened to be one of my coaches on the track and field team my senior year of high school.  She’s an amazing person and I was very excited about that announcement.  It was a last-minute opportunity base on the unexpected redistricting changes, so she was starting from scratch at the last minute.  Alas another candidate already in public office who presumably had quite a bit of a head start with fundraising and campaign infrastructure jumped in the race, and I think she recognized that playing catch up with such a short primary season would have been a daunting challenge to say the least. Ms. Scioli, call me when you’re ready to run again one day, you’ve got my support.

Now, those interesting notes aside, here’s tough news for Democrats in 2022—this is going to be a rough year.  Democrats have a clear path to protecting Governor Cooper’s veto, but even that will be a challenge.  It’s hard to imagine a world in which Democrats take the majority in either chamber, at least not this cycle.  It’s certainly possible within a few cycles if demographic changes hold steady and voters keep shying away from the extremism of the current GOP, but anything could happen.

On the state senate side, it looks like there are about 19 seats that are more or less safe Democratic seats and 24 safe Republican seats.  Republicans need 25 to protect their majority with the current Lt. Governor and 30 seats for a super majority.  There are 3 seats which lean Democratic, which are 11, 17, and 18.  District 11 covers Nash, Franklin, and Vance Counties where Democrat James Speed will take on incumbent Republican Lisa Barnes. District 17 is currently held by Democrat Sydney Batch, and she’ll face Libertarian Patrick Bowersox and Republican Marc Cavaliero. Finally, District 18, currently represented by Democrat Sarah Crawford, and which will now cover northern Wake and Granville Counties, will see Democrat Mary Wills Bode against Libertarian Ryan Brown and one of two Republicans vying for that nomination.  There are a few other districts that might be within reach if the winds shift to favor Democrats, but as the party in power in the White House in a midterm election year, we’ll just have to wait and see how things are looking when we get closer to election day.

On the House side, it looks like there are likely 47 safe Democratic seats and 55 safe Republican seats.  Republicans need 61 seats for a majority and 72 for a supermajority, so doing the math, that means Democrats need at least 49 seats to prevent a supermajority.  The good news is that Democrats have quite a few strong incumbents in competitive district that are not part of those 47 safe seats.  Among them are Representatives James Gailliard in District 25, Ricky Hurtado in District 63, Linda Cooper-Suggs in District 24, Brian Farkas in District 9, Howard Hunter in District 5, and Terence Everitt in District 35.  Districts 103 in Mecklenburg, 59 in Guilford, and 42 in Cumberland also look possible and have primaries. As a reminder, you heard from one of the House District 59 candidates a few weeks ago—Eddie Aday—so go check out that episode if you haven’t already.  I certainly hope we’ll hear from a lot more of these candidates in the weeks and months ahead as we work to support those fighting for democracy here in North Carolina!

And for those of you keeping score at home, I think this is our very first episode in which I don’t talk about gerry…nope, not even going to say it.  I’m perfectly happy skipping that topic for a bit while we get excited about our current candidates fighting for democracy, but I promise we’ll come back to it eventually because our work there is long from over.  But for now, we have maps and we have candidates.  Let’s go help them with their campaigns as they fight for a better North Carolina for everyone!

Ok, time for my interview with Tracy Furman.  I hope you enjoy!

[music]

JD Wooten: With me today is Tracy Furman, Executive Director of Triad Local First and At-Large Candidate for the Greensboro City Council. Welcome Tracy. 

Tracy Furman: Hi JD, how are you? 

JD Wooten: I'm well, thank you. Thank you so much for being here today. 

Tracy Furman: Thank you. I'm super excited. 

JD Wooten: As am I. You're the second person I've had the opportunity to talk to running for Greensboro City Council, but the first at-large, so we'll get to that in a moment, but, it turns out I have a standard first question that I ask everyone. So what is your earliest memory of politics or getting involved in politics? 

Tracy Furman: Oh wow, well my earliest memory was a very, very long time ago. And my family jokes, because I remember things from when I was really little, but I actually remember when Nixon resigned on television. 

JD Wooten: Ok!

Tracy Furman: Gosh, when did I get involved in politics? I'm not sure there was a time I wasn't in some way, shape or form. 

JD Wooten: That is a brilliant answer. And I love it. 

Tracy Furman: Great.

JD Wooten: And what a powerful first memory. So tell us a little about yourself and your background. 

Tracy Furman: Okay. Well I moved to Greensboro from South Carolina when I was seven. I went to St. Pius, Kaiser, and Grimsley. So I did the private school thing for a bit, but I'm definitely a public school product. Then I went off to college and ended up in Baltimore, which is a lovely, long story, but I lived in Baltimore for 10 years. I actually finished college in Baltimore in business management and accounting and sent me down on my accounting path. When I came back to Greensboro, came back in 2000 because I wanted my kids to go to a decent public school. I think public school is really, really important, and everyone needs to participate to make it great. And I wanted my kids to experience it. However, I still wanted them to have a fantastic education. So, I decided Greensboro was better than Baltimore city. So that's how I ended up back in Greensboro. Immediately got into the neighborhood associations, became the treasurer, big surprise -- accountant -- and did all the things that you can do as a full-time mom. I did PTA, and I did neighborhood associations, and YWCA, just volunteering where I could. As my kids got older and I started working, got a little more involved with the small business world. I started a restaurant in downtown Greensboro, it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately I started in 2008, which was a terrible idea, but... 

JD Wooten: Perfect timing. 

Tracy Furman: Yeah, it was funny cause my accounting in Baltimore was in mortgage-backed securities. And as 2008 started to unfold, I was sitting there going. I don't know if we should even open here because this is all bad. You know, this is just all going to go bad. And it kinda did. In 2011 I closed Riva's, went back into accounting, did a little more cooking on the side here and there, but the reality is that I had three children in college at one point and they need to eat. So that meant I needed to go back in the business world. When I started my restaurant, another organization started called Triad Local First, and we were one of the founding members. And so I had kind of woven in and out of, I'd been on their board and then I wasn't and things like that. And then in 2020, the Executive Director Had been there a while and she was ready to go. And I was on the board at the time and I said, okay, this was before the pandemic. I said, okay guys, I'll come in, I'll do this for six months while we find a new executive director. And everyone's like, yeah, great. And then at six months, everyone went, you're not leaving. So I've been there for a little bit. It's a great organization. We support independently, local owned businesses in the Triad. So not just Greensboro. A lot of our members are in Greensboro, but we also serve Kernersville, Winston-Salem, High Point, Jamestown, Pleasant Garden, anywhere in the Triad. We do this with networking. We have an education series. We do have a women's group called drive for women owned businesses. And we really try to help businesses find what they need. We're sort of a supply source for information. When I took on the role, though, the funny thing was I took on the role and. The pandemic hit like two weeks later and we had to completely change what we did. We couldn't have networking events anymore. We couldn't have in-person anything. We're trying to figure out how to do it. And at the same time, our member businesses were struggling so hard. They were like, what do we do? So instead of being our networking education group, we became the hub for where to get grants, how to apply, what to do, what's a PPP, how do we reopen with the right social distancing information, and things like that. So we were able to pivot and turn into that. And just now in the last couple of months, we're starting to now talk about doing networking events again and lunch and learns in person and things like that.

JD Wooten: That's amazing. You were able to do that pivot, but also talk about such a strong need for the small local businesses, making sure they understood those resources available to them. 

Tracy Furman: Right, I helped 14 businesses fill out their PPP application and then the Cares Grant. It was a lot of work, but it was a really important stuff that we were doing. Making sure people stayed opened and stayed in business. 

JD Wooten: Well, that's wonderful. So I know this isn't your first run for political office. You ran for Guilford County Commissioner in 2018 in a very impressive race that had an absolute nailbiter of a finish. I think it was just 216 votes shy of unseating an incumbent? So how was that experience 

Tracy Furman: It was exciting. At the time I lived in district three and I had just finished doing the City Academy. And when I finished it, I felt like I had a really good understanding of what every department in Greensboro did and their budget and who was running it and all that good stuff. And then I did the Citizens Academy and that's the Guilford County version of that same type thing. And at the time I was living in Nancy Hoffman's district, and I didn't want to run against her. You know, I thought she was doing a good job. And also I think the election had just happened where it was going to be four years. So this was four years ago. So city council wasn't an available option. So I looked at county commissioners and I was like, well, that's a lot of budgets managing a lot of the federal money, and I definitely know how to do that. I can manage that. So I decided to run. And I didn't know what I was doing. I was very, very green. But fortunately I really love knocking on doors and I really love meeting people and I love hearing what their concerns are and what their thoughts on what the solutions would be. So, I did a lot of that. And as it turns out, that's how you win elections is to go and do that a lot. I think that's how I got as close as I did, which was good. And it was funny because I had a really dear friend call me the day after the last recount and it was final and I conceded and she called and she said, how are you doing? Are you okay? And I said, I'm great! I almost did this. This is awesome. And I love campaigning. I love knocking on doors. I love meeting people. And she was like, okay, I hope you do it again. I was like, absolutely. I absolutely will. So fast forward, four years here we are doing it again.

JD Wooten: I remember having almost similar feelings after 2018. I appreciate you sharing that because that's, it's tough to explain that as a candidate, for me, at least, even when you don't win the election, but you vastly over-perform what anybody thinks was possible, it's still an exciting journey. 

Tracy Furman: Very much so. 

JD Wooten: Kudos again. So turning to your current race as city council. Now I've mentioned this before on the show, and I'll highlight it again just so our listeners remember. As a result of the delays and the release of the 2020 U.S. census data, redistricting efforts in 2020, were delayed across the country. And that had a tremendous impact on local races like yours. This was originally set to be a 2021 race, than a March 2022 race. At least as of today, what do we think the current dates for the primary and the general elections for the Greensboro City Council are? 

Tracy Furman: The primary is going to be May 17th and that primary is going to be the same as all the 2022 races. We'll be on the ballot with the state senators, the state general assembly, the federal senate, our Congresswoman, you know, everybody's going to be on there. It's going to be a big one. We will be having a primary and then people will need to come back in either June or July. It may be the end of July. I've heard both. But that date is not set, but May 17th is definitely set. 

JD Wooten: Well, we'll keep everyone posted and then we'll do everything we can to drive turnout for the general election in the summer. So here's another refresher for our listeners. The Greensboro City Council has nine members, the mayor, and three at-large seats, all of whom are elected by the entire city. And then five seats from geographic districts. What led you run for an at-large seat for the Greensboro City Council?

Tracy Furman: That's a good question. So I live in district three now for the City Council and I've lived in different districts all over Greensboro. And not to say the district three doesn't speak to me, but I do feel like where I've lived in other parts of this city and other groups that I belong to and work with on a regular basis, I feel like we need to pull the city together. And we need to have this ability to reach all parts and I feel very comfortable with that. So running at-large, I don't just have to represent a certain section of town. I can represent the whole town. 

JD Wooten: I love that, 

the unity of the city. Yes, we have five geographic districts, and that helps us ensure that those particular areas do have a voice on the council... 

Tracy Furman: Right. 

JD Wooten: But we really do work as a pretty cohesive city. So what are your top priorities for this campaign?

Tracy Furman: The bullet points are jobs, housing, transportation, environment, and fighting crime. With jobs, because of the work I do, I'm a very firm believer that a strong economy is only as strong as their smallest businesses. And if small businesses are struggling, then your economy and your community is struggling. I really want to find a way to support our smaller businesses, make it a little easier in different avenues to do business in Greensboro. There are some things that are, I've listened to some business owners tell me, when I went to start my business, I had trouble with X, Y, and Z. And I think, oh, gosh, well, we can fix that. It doesn't have to be this complicated or this disruptive to what they're doing. So there's that piece of it. We have these three or four large businesses coming in. We have Publix, we have Toyota, we have Boom, I think we have an Amazon somewhere. These are big companies, but they don't produce everything. So what can we do to support those big companies with smaller businesses and encouraging businesses that fix the manufacturing machines, cleaning services, supplies make the little, whatever the widget is that goes in that supersonic jet. Let's find ways to bring those businesses here so that it's easy for them to manufacture them. The shipping is no longer an issue because it's not coming from some other place in the world or the country, and it grows our economy. We become stronger because we have all this, and those big businesses are less likely to pick up and move if they have a lot of infrastructure that supports them. So the way we do that is we help other businesses support them and everybody's winning then, which is great. That's kind of a big picture thing. Smaller picture and this kind of goes into not exactly housing, but it's part of an infill plan that I have is to really work on filling all these empty buildings we have. We have a lot of empty buildings and they've been sitting empty for a really long time, and there's not a lot of incentive to fix them and put somebody in them to run a shop. So I would really like to look at small business tax incentives to fix these empty buildings and move in and put viable businesses inside them. We also have a lot of space that is sitting empty, projects that didn't finish in 2008. Maybe there were buildings there they've been knocked down the land's just sitting there empty. I was kind of upset that a few weeks ago there was a zoning hearing about three pretty good sized houses in Fisher Park, but it's a historic district and they're getting knocked down because the owner of all three properties wants to put a condominium there. And three blocks away, there's an entire city block of empty land that could be an awesome condo site, you know? And technically it's not in Fisher park, but it's three blocks. 

JD Wooten: So let me go back to that first point then on the jobs and the growth, the economic development, how do you think your work as an executive director for a nonprofit that's dedicated to promoting and strengthening economic growth and sustainability of local independently owned businesses could impact your thinking when serving on the council?

Tracy Furman: Wow. Definitely, my knowledge base comes from being able to talk to lots of different types of businesses and lots of individuals who are their only employer as well. And being able to listen to what they have to say and what they're going through at whatever given time. The pandemic is just one example of things happening that were challenging to particularly small businesses. But yeah, so that will help me on council because I do have a lot of people that I can call and say, what's going on with, you know Spring Garden Street. And what's going on in Spring Garden Street might not be the same things that are happening on South Elm Street or up on Pisgah Church. There's lots of places we have small businesses that need attention and they might need different things. And I think my work at Triad Local First has opened me up to being able to talk to lots of different people. 

JD Wooten: Yeah. That's a phenomenal thing to be able to bring to the table. It sounds like not only do you have the perspective of having been a former small business owner yourself, but also now you're the connector of so many local, small, independent businesses? I would imagine that would be a phenomenal tool in the tool bag for being able to help you out on City Council.

Tracy Furman: Absolutely. 

JD Wooten: So earlier you mentioned a lot of these big companies that are coming and I find it easy to sometimes lose track of just how many different announcements we've had. It's awesome. Keep them coming, but you also flag something that I think is equally important. And that is all the support businesses that will go to those big flagship businesses. And so what are some of your ideas on what we do for those smaller, independent businesses that will be developing that long-term pipeline, supply chain, however you want to word it? 

Tracy Furman: I think we need to definitely find ways to make space for them that is reasonably priced. Just like housing business property is going crazy with pricing and just becoming more and more expensive. So finding ways to make it more reasonable. I think if we can identify certain types of businesses that we know are needed and promote the idea of having them here. There might be somebody who's working at Honda Jet and they're like, you know, I've always wanted to go off on my own and make gears or something. You never know. Or somebody at Volvo, maybe they want to do research and development, but outside and on their own. I think there are a lot of people that want to do their own business, and finding ways to make them viable and successful is really important. And I think promoting those organizations that can help small businesses get off the ground, or keep running, or pivot and change what they're doing is going to be really important. I think that's what we can do as a City Council.

JD Wooten: That's awesome. So another area that you've talked about I know is traffic congestion and infrastructure. And I mentioned this because I haven't met anyone yet, that would oppose you and trying to reduce congestion. So I think we can all get behind you on this one, but what are some of your ideas on traffic and transportation infrastructure here in Greensboro? 

Tracy Furman: So, we have a couple areas in town that have just the city's outgrown them. And there is this 2040 plan in place. There's some targeted intersections that 

are 

going to be a little bit painful as we go through the process of making them congestion free, hopefully. I think the hardest one is probably going to be the Lawndale, Battleground, Westover Terrace, like that little square is just.. 

JD Wooten: Who doesn't love going through that section at night in the rain? 

Tracy Furman: Yes, it's awesome. If you try to turn right off of Lawndale and then turn left onto battleground. That is just...

JD Wooten: No, go around.

Tracy Furman: You will need to go to church after that. 

JD Wooten: Amen.

Tracy Furman: So it's just, it's really hard and that's going to be a really difficult one because it is so, so busy. But transportation is a big issue. So we need to work on those specific intersections around town. And I think communicating that is very important. Like what's going on with that? 

JD Wooten: And it's not like you can just shut these roads down for days at a time. 

Tracy Furman: Right? Exactly, exactly. So it takes a while to get through all of that. And I think communicating that as the main thing. They're going to take awhile. It's just what it is. They need to be done. But the other piece of transportation that is not super popular to talk about, but I think is really important, is our public transportation. And our public transportation, our current system, is predicated on a smaller town. It's got the spoke system. 

JD Wooten: Yeah. 

Tracy Furman: So no matter what bus you get on to anywhere in town, you have to go downtown to change buses, and any other city I've ever been in visiting, that's crazy. You can't do that. So we really need to restructure that so that there are buses that go around and there are buses that go to the spoke, and you can transfer in the middle of it. You don't have to go to downtown to transfer. The other thing we need are the same bus stops because if you're not from there, you can see the bus stop and go, oh, that's a bus stop. I know what that is. I think that's really important. I don't think signposts on the side of the road where people are driving 45 miles an hour, and you're standing right next to it with the water splashing up on you, is a good way to wait for the bus. You know, this is not good. So we need standardized places to shelter and it needs to be lit. I'm all for solar power. We have some solar power ones around. I think we also should have kiosk in there with information about what's going on in the city and advertising. And then also include charging stations in there and outlets so that people can plug in their smart phones or their laptops or whatever they need so that they can work. And really big picture is to make sure that each bus stop is also a Wi-Fi hub so that people can have Wi-Fi. If they don't have it in their homes, they can get to it. 

JD Wooten: That would be amazing.

Tracy Furman: I just think it's a good way to distribute the wifi thing out cause they need to be everywhere, right? 

JD Wooten: Yeah. I mean, if, if the last two years have taught us nothing else, and there were certainly plenty of lessons learned, but the importance of reliable, high-speed internet that is a public commodity, that's a utility, has really come to the forefront.

Tracy Furman: It really has. It really has. And it's something I, I really believe strongly in. 

JD Wooten: So any other major campaign platform areas we missed that you want to highlight? 

Tracy Furman: I think the only other thing that I need to mention is that I really want to find positive ways to deal with some of our issues with crime. There's two different things going on. There's the need for the right people to go help people who are in mental distress, or even domestic violence issues, or those kinds of things versus people going through and taking money out of cars, and catalytic converters, and things like that. We need a strong police force to keep us safe. And keep us safe in the good ways and solve the crimes and have the ability and the bandwidth to be able to spend time on something that doesn't quite seem clear and do the right investigations. And I don't think they have that right now because there one aren't enough of them, and two, I think training needs to be a little different. That's what I personally think. But the other end of it is that what can we do? And this probably means working with the county because it involves mental health and social work, which is not in the City Council's bandwidth. That's not what we do. But What can we do to help the county help us get there? I think that there are other solutions. There are some things coming out of other cities, dealing with people who have drug addiction. If you're addicted to drugs, that's not, you know, yes, it's a crime. You bought any illegal substance, but it is not a crime that you are addicted to that drug. That's not a crime, that's a health issue and we need to start treating them like that. And that's something I feel very strongly about, so that's going to be a piece of how I make decisions and ideas that come up.

JD Wooten: I love that. So where can people go to learn more about you, your campaign, how they can help you get elected? 

Tracy Furman: I have a website. It is electtracyfurman.com and that's T R A C Y F U R M A N. No "E's" no "I's." I also have a Facebook page that's pretty active. And then I have Twitter, and I have Instagram, and I have Tik-Tok, and all that fun stuff that'll let you know where I am and what I'm doing. If you're looking for platform information, definitely the website and the Facebook page are great places to go. And if you are looking for a place to donate, the website has a button.

JD Wooten: Alright everyone, go to the website. We'll drop the link in the show notes, make a donation, sign up to volunteer. Tracy, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. It's been a real pleasure. 

Tracy Furman: Thank you so much JD, this was great, really great.

[music]

JD Wooten: Thanks again to Tracy Furman for joining me today. Please visit her website at electtracyfurman.com and follow her on social media to learn more about her and her campaign.  Links in the show notes.  As always, if you or someone else you know should be on the show, send me an email at jd@carolinademocracy.com.  Don’t forget to subscribe where ever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode, and share this episode with a friend. Together, we can achieve a better North Carolina for everyone!

Introduction
Interview with Tracy Furman
Closing Notes