I’ve had the opportunity to go out to Cleveland, Ohio to campaign for Hillary Clinton for the next two weeks. My friends Ryan and James are out there working as campaign fellows and I thought that it would be fun to go and join them. It is great fun at the moment – I’ve met loads of friendly people in the office and out at events.

The Republican National Convention is downtown right now, as you’ll all probably know, and we were trying to register voters around the area. Ryan and James got a few, but I’m still learning the ropes with doing that. It’s really complex to register to vote online here and really easy to fall off the register, so it’s important that we go out and get people registered. Especially in the more deprived areas of Cleveland, people tend to be removed from the register without knowing they have been because they’ve either moved or not voted since 2012.

After the voter registration session we went down to Starbucks and this place was absolutely crawling with Republicans and journalists. A man came into the shop wearing a shirt that was trying to parody the “Hope” image of Obama, except it had Bill Clinton on it with “Rape” underneath it. As a liberal feminist, I have to seriously restrain myself from arguing with people in public over here. I haven’t actually watched much of the RNC coverage. It’s not good for my blood pressure. I’m normally tolerant of my political opponents, but to quote someone I met this evening, Governor Kasich has “destroyed women’s rights”, and that’s before we even get on to talking about Trump.

On a positive note, our potluck dinner this evening was great – there were so many attendees from various diverse backgrounds. First we heard from Councilwoman Nancy Moore, who has served Shaker Heights on the council for years– a true Lib Dem style local champion – as she introduced Congressman Xavier Becerra (D– CA). He spoke about coming from a working class background, being the first in his family to go to college, and the pride in his parents’ eyes when he invited them to the White House to meet Bill Clinton. So many attendees found that reflected in their own experience – including me. His mother was a clerical worker and mine started off working in the Post Office.

We have another potluck dinner tomorrow, and I’m really looking forward to meeting more people and getting to know more about their experiences. I registered my first voter today, but the jet lag combined with the heat is taking it out of me, so I might see if I can switch to some more phonebanking and data entry. I also got handed a potential ticket to the Daily Show on Friday when I was out doing voter registration, so hopefully I can write about that in my next blog!

* Hannah Bettsworth is VP Comms of Liberal Youth Scotland and on the Executive of Scottish Liberal Democrat Women. She recently spent a year studying in Salamanca and is a former member of the Liberal Youth International Committee.