Purple State

Dorothy "Dot" Clark is a 25-year-old account manager at a tech-focused public relations firm in Manhattan. She lives in an inherited Upper West Side apartment and has planned her life carefully, but nothing is working out. Her job is unfulfilling, her boss promotes less-qualified colleagues over her, and her six-month relationship with Ryan Montgomery, a finance professional, has gone stale. She suspects he is about to propose.

Dot's two best friends from NYU are equally adrift. Mary Russo, a corporate lawyer from Staten Island and the first in her Italian American family to graduate from college, finds her work tedious and craves something meaningful. A possessive law school ex left her wary of relationships. Harper Lee Adler, an aspiring novelist from Park Slope, Brooklyn, teaches English at a ritzy Manhattan private school until her headmaster propositions her. She quits and moves in with her brother.

One evening, the three gather at Dot's apartment for a conference call organized by Kaitlyn "Kitty" Bell, a former NYU acquaintance who runs a Democratic Super PAC, a political action committee that raises unlimited funds independently of campaigns, called For the Win (FTW). Kitty wants to recruit volunteers to move to purple states, which swing between parties in elections, for the year leading up to the next presidential election, with all expenses covered. Her top target is Cedar Falls, Wisconsin, in the swingiest county of the most critical battleground state. Dot impulsively asks about the opportunity, then backs off, but the idea stays with her.

Events push Dot toward a decision. She discovers her firm plans to downsize and pile extra work onto her. She spots Ryan shopping for engagement rings. At dinner, he praises a Republican governor and suggests his future wife might be a stay-at-home mom. Dot breaks up with him. That Saturday, she pitches the Wisconsin move to Mary and Harper as a political gap year: free housing, transportation, and a living allowance. After initial resistance, both agree. Mary secures her firm's approval to work remotely, Harper resolves her lease, and Dot resigns. In early January, they fly to Milwaukee.

The Crew settles into a Craftsman-style house in Cedar Falls. Dot walks to the local Democratic offices each day, where she meets Rose Perkins, an 82-year-old lifelong volunteer with deep community roots, and Fletcher Abbott, a 27-year-old FTW volunteer from San Francisco. She also befriends Mimi Downey, the owner of Flour Power, a local bakery. Fletcher is charming and good-looking; Dot notes their chemistry but resolves not to date during her time in Wisconsin. Mary adjusts to small-town life while working remotely. A blue-eyed police officer pulls her over for rolling through a stop sign, gives her a warning, and calls her "New York." Harper finds a writing routine at the Sin Bin, a hockey-themed sports bar owned by Tommy Taylor, and grows fond of him despite vowing to swear off attractive men.

At Reader Falls Bookshop, Dot meets Danny Dawson, a 30-year-old construction worker with dark hair and sad eyes. She learns from the shop's elderly owners and from Grace Taylor, a local farmer's wife, that Danny's mother died of cancer during his college years, that his fiancée, Sadie, and their unborn daughter were killed by a drunk driver about two years earlier, and that he grew up alongside the Taylor family. Dot feels an immediate connection.

Dot organizes a bus trip to the first Democratic primary debate in Madison, where nine candidates take the stage. Kitty identifies one compelling long shot: State Senator Lucia "Lucy" Lopez of Georgia, a young, single Latina with immigrant parents and a passion for education reform. Snap polls show Lopez tied for first.

Grace invites The Crew to Sunday supper at the Taylor farm, where identities collide. The blue-eyed officer, Jake Taylor, is Grace and Joe Taylor's son. Tommy, Jake's twin, owns the Sin Bin. Danny arrives as a regular guest. Over dinner, Joe reveals the farm is under threat from an eminent domain action, a legal process allowing the government to seize private property for public use, for a manufacturing facility possibly backed by a foreign entity. His family has farmed this land for six generations. Danny and Dot exchange phone numbers.

As spring turns to summer, relationships deepen. Dot and Danny begin running together and dating cautiously. Mary researches the Taylor farm case, consulting Patricia Parker, a property law partner at her New York firm. Harper fosters a stray dog Tommy rescues, naming her Pippi. At a state convention in Milwaukee, Dot loses her romantic interest in Fletcher after he screams and flees from a bumblebee, an incident Mary and Harper find hilarious.

Danny's construction crew renovates the bookshop in a 72-hour sprint while the owners are away. At the celebration afterward, Mary learns her grandmother has had a stroke. Jake drives her to the Milwaukee airport in his police cruiser, and they share their first kiss at the terminal. Tommy and Harper share their first kiss after a fishing date. Harper unfollows her ex, Kai, on Instagram, freeing herself from a lingering attachment.

Lopez becomes the Democratic nominee. On a phone call, Lopez advises Dot not to pass up a chance to be loved. Dot receives a job offer from a D.C.-based Super PAC but is torn: She wants to work in politics, yet she is increasingly in love with Danny. She creates a viral mock dating profile for Lopez that preempts a negative news story, earning national attention.

Dot and Danny spend their first night together, but when Dot sees Danny having dinner with a woman she does not recognize, she assumes the worst and cuts off contact. In a charged conversation at a restaurant, all three women acknowledge for the first time that they have fallen for Republicans, a fact none of them anticipated. Mary learns from Jake that the woman was Sadie's sister, with whom Danny shares an annual birthday dinner, but Dot refuses to reach out.

Mary discovers that the law firm pressing the Taylor farm sale also represents Chinese defense companies without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires disclosure of foreign representation to the U.S. government. The federal government backs off to avoid a scandal, and the farm is saved.

On Halloween, Danny appears at The Crew's house, explains the misunderstanding, and tells Dot he loves her. She tells him she loves him too. On Election Day, Dot works from before dawn. The race remains too close to call late into the night. Danny texts that he is waiting outside. Dot runs to him, then returns to leave notes for Rose and Fletcher and crosses Election Day off her calendar. At Danny's house, when he moves to put away Sadie's photograph, Dot stops him, telling him she loves all of him, including his past.

After the election, the couples visit New York for New Year's Eve. Harper announces her acceptance into a fully funded MFA program in creative writing in Iowa, about four and a half hours from Cedar Falls. Mary takes Jake to Sunday supper with her family on Staten Island, where everyone adores him; at the airport, Jake photographs an NYPD recruiting poster, hinting he may consider moving. Dot turns down the D.C. job and recommends Fletcher, who accepts.

When a taxi driver asks Dot and Danny where they are going, Dot reaches for Danny's hand and says "Home," choosing Cedar Falls. In the epilogue, Danny reveals he has bought the bookshop and converted the adjacent storefront into a café named "Dot's Bookshop & Second Cup Café," a reference to Danny's belief that all the good stuff happens during the second cup of coffee. Danny carries Dot across the threshold. After a year of worrying about her plans, she has made the right choice.