Whether it’s my books or my newsletters or my interviews, it doesn't take long to figure out that one of my central principles in how we regain ground in this battle for democracy is that we have to…Run Everywhere.
Allowing so much of the American political map to go uncontested has done great damage to democracy and outcomes. We must bring accountability to uncontested districts, starting at the statehouse level.
The good news is that there are a number of groups that are working hard to build an infrastructure to do this. And I’m proud to be part of one.
It’s called Blue Ohio, and yesterday my partner in this endeavor,
, and I described the model, its growth, and a new phase where we are expanding our scope of work to include advocacy. I think you’ll enjoy the conversation (above).The Model
While explosions in small-dollar contributions have been working wonders supporting federal candidates in certain swing states in recent years, almost no money flows to most statehouse candidates.
And since it’s statehouses where most of the attacks on democracy and extremism have been doing the most damage, the lack of meaningful support for most statehouse candidates turns out to be a huge problem for democracy. Even worse, that lack of support is leaving huge numbers of these districts (the very districts where the most damage is being done) not contested at all. (Because why run if no one cares enough to support your candidacy?) And that, of course, makes the problem even worse. A downward spiral of extremism and anti-democracy, wholly uninterrupted by the other side or even a modicum of accountability.
In my book Saving Democracy, I equate the situation to a soccer game where one team is always on offense (extreme statehouses are the forwards, shooting at the goal non-stop). And the other team hardly plays defense against them:
SO…seeing this problem, I joined up with Michelle, who runs a group called Every State Blue, to see if we could do something about this dilemma.
Could we convince people of the importance of investing at the statehouse level—investing just a sliver of the dollars we collectively give to federal races at the statehouse level, into districts and campaigns that usually get little attention and even less support?
A Solution? Blue Ohio
To try, we set up something called Blue Ohio.
Think of it as a community that greatly values those heroes who step up to campaign in these statehouse races, and especially in the toughest districts. We not only meet monthly to talk with these candidates, but we highlight all sorts of other political matters. But we also all care enough that our members give an amount monthly to support them.
And almost every penny of what we give goes to those statehouse candidates.
And uniquely, we prioritize the races that usually get little to no support—the ones who never get their calls returned.
They get our help first, and we go up from there. We call it our “bathtub model.” By filling the bathtub from the bottom up, our goal is to create an always rising baseline of support across the entire state. The more money, the higher the level in that bathtub rises.
Over the long run, our goal is that Ohioans who are considering running know that if they run anywhere in Ohio, no matter how tough the area, they will get support.
Because to battle back against extremism that has taken hold of our state, we value them running, especially in tough places. We need them running. In red districts and blue, we need them knocking on doors to turn out votes for everyone on the ballot. And we don’t just say it, we pitch in to make it happen.
So that was the concept.
And we started it three years ago. We then started making a lot of noise.
And what happened since?
Three Years In….
Well, first, people did rally around this vision.
Blue Ohio grew quickly to 1000+. People from all over Ohio joined, and some from even further away. It turns out, people are eager to embrace this deeper vision of fighting for democracy, even if they don’t live in the state that is impacted.
As a result of this growth, the steady flow of our monthly contributions has added up.
Even in 2022, after only a few months of existence, we were able to support 20 candidates and raise a basic baseline of support for all. In that short time, we reduced the number of Democratic candidates who had $5,000 or less in support from 13 (in 2020) to 0 (in 2022). Blue Ohio essentially filled the gap.
But as I emphasized in “Saving Democracy,” this is a long-game strategy, and time is its best friend. So as pleased as we were with our first few months, we hoped the impact would be far greater in 2024. The question was, how much?
2024: Boom!
Well, the answer turned out to be powerful affirmation of what we’re doing. Here are the basics:
in 2024, the community of small-dollar monthly supporters raised and distributed more than $385,000 to 58 legislative candidates—which was almost 60% of the Democratic candidates in the state (who had opponents).
This—and the $450k total that’s supported 89 Democratic candidates over two cycles— makes Blue Ohio one of the biggest supporters of legislative candidates in the state of Ohio. And we grew to that prominence not as a corporation or lobbyist or a group looking for private gain. Or political favors. Or payback. Just a community of citizens who are passionate about democracy, and accountability, and who understand that running for the legislature everywhere is a crucial step to advancing both.
And compared to 2020, when those 13 candidates had under $5,000 in their coffers, in 2024, NO candidate running on the Democratic side raised less than $12,750 (the new “floor”). Why? Because Blue Ohio filled the gap.
And by showing that we value folks running everywhere, our goal is that more will run. Not only do we want a candidate running in every district, we want them to each have a baseline of support so they can run a solid campaign.
In 2024, we achieved this goal too. The number of races not contested by Democrats dropped in half (and was one-third the national average).
That is enormous support overall.
But way beyond raw dollar numbers, what does this mean?
It means 58 candidates now running with the support they need to get started.
It means candidates with triple the resources to knock on doors, hand out flyers, drive their district, and so on. In other words, the marginal value of these dollars goes much further than the same $385K would’ve done as part of a multi-million dollar TV buy for a single race:
It means candidates freed up from doing call time in rural districts—where dozens of hours can generate a few hundred dollars, or less—to instead get to those doors in the first place: their highest value as a candidate.
And when they do all that grassroots work, these candidates are of course lifting themselves, and holding their extremist opponents accountable.
But every door they knock on and volunteer they enlist is also lifting turnout up and down the ticket.
This support lifts all those causes, often in places where we usually have little to no presence.
This Blue Ohio support is helping to change that.
2025:Widening Our Mission
The power of Blue Ohio in election cycles is clear.
But we know there’s potential to flex that power – regardless of where we are in the cycle.
Blue Ohio members all over the state (and all over the country) have confirmed what we thought was the case: that many members of our community want to do more right now to push back against the Ohio GOP’s extremism and to support their fellow Ohioans.
That’s why we’re really excited to be collaborating with Rachel Coyle, who you may know from her work at How Things Work at the Ohio Statehouse. Rachel’s work organizing and activating Ohioans has been an inspiration – and now Blue Ohio is working directly with her to help develop and flex our grassroots muscle.
Blue Ohio members will soon be receiving a drumbeat of updates and guidance on how they can most effectively advocate for the issues you care about at the state level.
And then we will advocate together.
Keep Going: Join Us!
As you can tell, I’m excited about all this.
It’s working, yes, but in my mind, we are just getting started.
This is the type of long-game strategy that we haven’t undertaken for decades (while the other side has). And this proves it can work.
Larger, national forces may impact results year to year, but building this infrastructure up will create a huge long-term dividend.
So what you can you do to help?
Simple: JOIN US!
Join Blue Ohio—become a monthly member. Help us keep growing this model as big as we can. Sign on to join HERE.
Then after you join, share this email with others so they join as well. Every new member makes a huge difference. That’s how this all started two years ago, one member at a time!
We are also building the same model in others states where activists have stepped up. So check out Blue Tennessee. Or Blue Missouri.
Pick at least one. Join them.
Because the people of these states and others deserve to have democracy again. And it all starts with many more contested and supported races at the statehouse level. And that starts with valuing those races, and the heroes who step up to run in them.
Thank you for all who’ve gotten Blue Ohio off to such an impactful start.
And thank you to all of those who join us—and share the news—so we can continue to grow and support candidates running everywhere!
Day 169 — May 9, 2025
Two dark developments on one day:
The Mayor of Newark, NJ was arrested by federal agents as he and members of Congress stood outside a recently opened, for-profit detention center. The Mayor has claimed the center lacked the permit required to house immigrants. While the federal government claimed the officials “storm[ed] into” the facility, video footage showed that they were outside the facility when they were detained. The Mayor was released after five hours in custody.
Stephen Miller announced that the president is considering suspending habeas corpus if courts continue to uphold the rule of law and rule against Trump’s illegal actions. As numerous lawyers pointed out, that is a power reserved for Congress, and only in cases of a “dire national security emergency,” as Steve Vladeck writes.
Share this post