Hindsight is 20/20.
Originally, I wanted to black out the moments at Hudson Mercantile when I realized Trump was going to win Florida — and shortly thereafter, the election, but over Thanksgiving I was encouraged by family to write them down — for one day I might have kids of my own who will ask about this moment and what it felt like to stand for an America that promised to be inclusive, big-hearted and — of course — stronger together.
Having put much thought into my time on the campaign, these are the words I’ve managed to find:
E-Night was a blur, but I’ll never be able to black out the morning after. It was the most silent I’ve heard an LIRR car in my life — you could’ve heard a pin drop. Even the automated station signals sounded different that day. The city felt quieter.

The world was waiting to hear from the room I was about to walk in, and even though we had lost, I can say without a doubt that I was never more proud to have been a part of the Secretary’s campaign, than I was in that moment.
The concession was Presidential, patriotic, and proved exactly why she ought to have been #45.
In the hours and days thereafter, on social media and IRL; conference calls, texts, emails, snapchats and calls that all went to voicemail; colleagues, friends, family members and people I hadn’t heard from in months/years reached out to ask how I was.
I had no words then. With anyone I saw during that time there was a lot of silent understanding. I still don’t really know how to sum up those few days and the months that have followed, they’ve been a mix of highs and lows.
When I first started interning with the campaign in September 2015, I was in the midst of recruiting cycles. I had no idea where my time with the campaign would lead, but within the first month of being involved, I knew I wanted to be there till the end. I gave up on the recruiting process and I’d make that same decision again in a second.
If Fordham taught me one thing, it was to matter and make a difference; I knew I couldn’t make a difference in IB or management consulting on the same scale that a — Hillary — Clinton Presidency would’ve made a difference. I recognized that I had the opportunity to help amplify the voice of people across this country who needed someone that was going to fight for them and their families.
My senior year of college will always be a mess of memories. Primary night nerves, all-nighters writing term papers, preparing a 90-minute seminar on the financial collapse of 2008 in the midst of it all. It was a constant juggle of finding the balance between being a college student and doing my part to help HRC become the first female nominee of a major party.
I started the campaign, unsure — of myself, of who I was, and if I’d be able to succeed. I learned a lot about myself in those sixteen months and can say I left the campaign a more sure and confident version of my truest self and have so many people to thank for that.
In August 2012 when I started college, I had one — lofty — goal: to figure out who I was. Cliché. I know, I hated it too. It wasn’t quantitative, there was no metric for success, and does one ever really figure themselves out?
That moment of finding myself happened somewhere between New Hampshire primary night, at a bar in Brooklyn drowning my sorrows, and shortly after coming back from Philly, when I felt I had hit my stride.
I thought it would be an eat, pray, love moment. It wasn’t. It instead was just a moment. I was me, no one cared I was me, and that is how the real TSG came to be just simply, TSG.
Joining the campaign I knew losing was a possibility — if you don’t win…you lose. But no one plans to lose, and when you do no one tells you how hard it actually is.
In most other jobs, if you fail or make a misstep — few people, if any know. On this campaign, the entire world knew, and there was no escaping it.
What no one tells you about loss, is that you go through a whirlwind of emotions. There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed, and days I just wanted to give up. Days I was inspired by the voices that were standing up to injustice and days where I thought reality was less real than an episode of VEEP. Happy, sad, mad, angry, depressed, stressed, hurt — I felt them all at various points and sometimes at the same time. There was a period of time where — like many I know — I didn’t know if I could be proud of the direction America was heading.
To this day, I still have unread texts and emails from November 9. To those that asked why we lost: I didn’t know what to say.
To those that asked how I was: I didn’t know what to say.
To those that asked if I was still going to the Apollo Circle @ The Met that night? I couldn’t bring myself to (it instead was spent at Custom House).
And to those that asked whats next? I had no clue.
January 20 was a hard day. I had an interview during the actual inauguration ceremony, so I was spared having to watch the speech in real time. I remember walking into the building and immediately being greeted with CNN, MSNBC, CNBC et al on every TV in a conference room in the distance. The unescapable reality. I was beginning to chart my own future while the nation also headed into uncharted territory. Both the nation and myself having no idea what was to come.
January 19 was by far, the worst day of the transition. It still felt like the President-elect’s campaign hadn’t ended. I remember thinking to myself there’s no way he’s actually going to take the oath tomorrow. It seemed unreal. I knew that for many around the country, January 19 was the last day for the foreseeable future that they were going to feel safe in their own country, and how terrible a feeling that must be.
When Shattered came out, it all surfaced again. People reaching out asking if it was true, how miserable we must’ve all been, how glad we must be that it’s all over. It almost seemed to me as if the perception of the campaign versus what the campaign was actually like, was a microcosm of how Hillary’s perceived publicly vs. how those that know her would describe her to you.
I’m sure it would have been more exciting to the outside world if Brooklyn was a miserable place. It fits in better with the narrative of #infighting. But when I look back on the 11th Floor, Brooklyn was a happy place. Brooklyn was full of dogs, and wine, and Hamilton, and SoulCycle.
I haven’t been back to Brooklyn Heights since (until today). In part because I had no reason to go back anymore, but I also didn’t know if I could. Its hard to go back to something that has such distinct memories, that now seems desolate without the campaigns presence.
Brooklyn Heights became home. I used to hate going to Brooklyn, I still — kind of do — but BK Heights will always be an exception.
I will say I miss complaining about debating the same lunch options, the inconsistency in b.good’s quality, the greatness that is Jalapa Bar tacos, the Urgent Care team that always said we ought to sleep more, until they found out we worked on the 11th Floor. And the fact that I somehow ended up with the best desk on the floor. A corner cube that faced the Freedom Tower on one side and looked up the East side on the other.
For all the time we spent there, I never complained that I had a lack of something to look at.
Though, the workload was daunting and by the last week I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep; it rightfully so was the hardest I’ve worked in my life — fighting to elect the leader of the free world shouldn’t be a 9–5 when the victor can reshape the entire world’s trajectory with the stroke of a pen (or a tweet).
I’ve spent (regrettably) a lot of time discussing the election (both at, and against my will) with friends on both sides of the political spectrum. Through where I grew up, and where I went to school, I probably have more Republican friends than one might expect for someone that has spent their life in New York— though it’s these conversations that have benefitted me the most, and illustrated a part of why the divide in this country runs so deep.
Even amongst friends, we sometimes don’t take the time to see where the other person is coming from. We’ve become people that speak at each other, and not to each other.
Nowadays it seems that the loudest voice in the room wins out — though I still believe there is more strength in listening. When we listen, we connect, we relate and we are able to find and occupy common ground.
To borrow from WJC at the 2012 DNC, “no one’s right all the time, and a broken clock is only right twice a day.”
No one has all the answers and no one can go it alone, but together we have always proven that we can rise to any challenge.
Some reading this might say: there is no common ground to be found. I guarantee you there is.
I guarantee you that no one wants this country to fail. I guarantee you no one wants to see the day when America isn’t the strongest beacon for freedom and democracy.
Recently, I was reminded by a line in a speech the Secretary made in 2015: “the story of America, is a story of hard-fought, hard-won progress. And it continues today.”
The campaign broke records on so many levels. We made American history, and it has made the path for the individual who ultimately becomes our nation’s first female POTUS, a little bit easier — so I hope.
I’ll forever be proud to have been a small part of it. In many ways the campaign, and the people I spent so much time with on it, have helped shaped me into who I am today.
The campaign exemplified that fighting for what you believe is right, is worth it, and that that fight continues on.
TSG