Brooke Rusenko woke up the morning after the 2016 presidential election and, distraught, felt she hadn’t done enough to stop Donald Trump from winning.
She resolved that from that point forward, she’d show up. Last week, Rusenko, a part-time lawyer, flew from her home in Northern California to volunteer for Kamala Harris’ campaign in the crucial suburban counties that ring Philadelphia.
She has joined volunteers from all over the U.S. and overseas who have descended on a bustling field office in the storied Main Line suburbs west of the city. They left jobs and families behind to knock on doors, make phone calls, fold and package literature — anything to improve Harris’ chances even to the slightest degree.
“Waking up when Donald Trump won the election was one of the worst feelings I had in my whole life,” Rusenko, 41, said in an interview. “I had wished I had done more, and I hadn’t. I felt I had let myself down by not working harder, and I’ve vowed not let that happen again.”
