The first in a five-day series where our writer gauges the mood of US progressives during a 10-day trip across the country.

A few months after the 2016 election, 29-year-old Emily Marburger posted an update on a private Facebook group, Pantsuit Nation, that had been set up to support Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid.

“Like the rest of us last November, I woke up to a situation I didn’t know existed,” she wrote. “I knew I had to get involved. I felt driven to help. But I never imagined I’d find myself, at 29, running for Mayor in the heated Democratic primary in my tiny square mile borough of 8,000 (just outside Pittsburgh).”