Just imagine the sheer “what-might-have-been” agony Sherry Higgins will go through the rest of her life…
In her 2022 primary for North Carolina’s District 115 seat in the state Legislature, Higgins trailed by just 7 votes in the unofficial Election Night totals. After absentee ballots were counted, she trailed by only 3.
When the official votes were announced on May 27, she and her opponent ended up tied at 3,145 to 3,145.
Per state law, an automatic machine recount was then conducted. Again, the race ended in a tie. The election department then conducted a manual hand-eye recount, and she ended up losing by…ONE VOTE!
It didn’t have to be that way.
Higgins reportedly only raised and spent a grand total of $464.04. She didn’t do any mailers to voters. She didn’t have a campaign website. And her campaign Facebook page only had 25 followers.
If Sherry Higgins had been enrolled in even one of our campaign training programs, there’s no doubt in my mind she would have learned at least one thing that would have given her that one vote needed to avoid the loss… and probably enough to secure the win.
In fact, I’m betting that if she’d been a subscriber of this “Campaign Hot Tips” e-newsletter or read my “Best of Campaign Hot Tips” book, she’d have learned one of more things that would have gotten her the two votes she needed to come out of top.
The cold, harsh reality is this: It’s not necessarily the best candidate who wins, but the best campaign.
In a close race like Sherry Higgins’, every little thing can make the difference between winning and losing. One little thing could determine if you’re crying in your beer on election night…or popping champagne corks.
By the way, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich interviewed me about our campaign training projects for his “Newt’s World” podcast a couple weeks ago. You can still catch it here: https://campaigndoctor.com/newtpodcast