Taking back the seat: What Resner’s campaign team did differently this time around 

In a campaign video for Shasta County’s District 1 Supervisor role posted on April 3, a montage of images of the same empty chair fills the screen. After a few seconds, the video cuts to a sequence of individuals across Shasta County—a nurse, a construction worker, a rancher. One by one they sit in the chair, looking directly into the camera. “This is our seat,” each says. 

At the end, Erin Resner comes into frame. “Let’s take back our seat,” she says firmly. 

The image of Resner taking her spot in an empty chair alongside diverse members of the Shasta County community became a defining feature of her campaign, which was built around the messaging that Shasta residents must “take back” what is rightfully theirs. It was also a product of a lesson learned the hard way. 

Nearly four years ago, in November 2022, Resner lost a runoff race to opponent Kevin Crye by just 90 votes. He’s held the seat since January 2023. After the loss, both Resner and her long-time campaign manager Alyssa Pitts say, they knew something had to change. 

“I felt like I failed Shasta County because we deserved better than Kevin,” Pitts said of the loss.

Crye ran his 2022 supervisor campaign as a self-labeled “political outsider” focused on highlighting the voices of locals who felt they weren’t being heard. Resner ran on her current experience and leadership style. She was, and is, a Redding City Council member.

That approach didn’t work for her, perhaps because it played directly into Crye’s strategy, pitting his untested experimental approach to politics, and controversial funding connections against Resner’s sometimes contentious leadership decisions and ties to more established political networks.  

Pitts had worked with Resner since her successful run for Redding City Council in 2018. Since then, she said, she’s sat through almost every council meeting to stay informed and collaborate with Resner meaningfully. 

While Resner had no official plans to run again after her 2022 defeat, Pitts was determined not to find herself in the same position for any future campaign she might manage. To gather all the insight she could, she enrolled in a master’s program for Political Management at George Washington University with an emphasis in campaigns and elections. Once there, she was accepted into a special political campaign-training program at Yale University. It’s known as The Campaign School. 

At the Yale program, Pitts recalled, she was “the conservative voice,” being one of only two Republicans in the room. The experience instilled in her a sense of the importance of collaboration across political differences. “I think probably the most powerful takeaway is we’re actually way more similar than we think we are,” she said. 

When Resner announced in December 2025 that she would challenge Kevin Crye’s re-election for the same supervisor position, Pitts was ready, bringing in the lessons learned at school to shift to a new strategy. 

Some of these shifts were logistical, such as using mail or television to target older voters in Shasta County who are more likely to turn out for primary elections than younger voters. The campaign also took a highly bipartisan approach, and had higher volunteer engagement than in 2022. 

Other strategies were more emotional, beginning with language. “Take back our seat” was chosen to break down the distance between Resner and voters, inviting them into the effort. “This community is a team. I want to collaborate with you, I want to hear from you,” Resner said about the messaging she hoped to cast.

Part of Crye’s success in 2022, Pitts said, had been achieved by portraying Resner as an elitist figure that was “above” others. “We knew going in that not only did that need to be combated because they had done such a successful job pushing that out last time, but it’s also just not true,” she said of Resner, a mother of four who co-owns the local Dutch Bros. Coffee franchises with her husband. 

The campaign also placed an emphasis on showcasing different sides of Resner as both a politician and an individual, a process Pitts referred to in a March interview as “pulling out different pieces of Erin.” 

Resner’s campaign website highlights her childhood which includes an upbringing in a ranch setting that “taught her what real leadership looks like,” featuring a photograph of Resner standing next to a horse. The clothing Resner wore was more plain, the hair more loose than the previous campaign—all decisions made to present a de-centered image of Resner as somebody voters could see themselves in. 

At the same time, Resner’s recent campaign has been far more aggressive towards Crye. In recent months, her campaign has released videos featuring prosecutors from the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office, directly criticizing Crye as the reason for the prosecutor shortage. 

The changes in strategy appear to have succeeded. With the vast majority of ballots counted, Resner currently holds a strong lead with over 54% of the vote. Over 1,300 votes separate her from the competitor she lost to by less than 100 votes in 2022. 

Pitts is hopeful that the results indicate a shift in Shasta County. 

“If these results hold, I believe the message is unmistakably that people are no longer looking for the loudest voice in the room,” Pitts said by email last last week. “They’re looking for the steadiest hand.”

Annelise Pierce contributed reporting to this story.

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