These are the Downballot Diaries – stories of and from some of the people Every State Blue is supporting this cycle.

We crowdfund support for underfunded Democrats running for state legislature – typically in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts in the country. We’re redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere.

We support people running hard in the hardest places.

Brittany Newton is one of those people. This is her story.

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Brittany Newton, 31, is not afraid of hard work. She’s a single mom with two kids and four jobs: nursing assistant, human resources assistant, tax preparer, and nail technician. In the Army, she was a cargo specialist who operated heavy equipment. And now she’s pitching in to help her neighbors in southeastern North Carolina, where families are getting by on household incomes that are over 30 percent below the statewide median.

Three years ago, Newton began joining in community conversations about why working families can’t get ahead. Her neighbors in Whiteville, Columbus County, came from across the political spectrum, but they got together to focus on one issue—moving their community toward a living wage. Having dubbed themselves the Deciders (please stream the documentary!), they showed up in Raleigh to talk to their district’s representative. They were met by a closed door. “We were knocking on his door, calling, sending emails, and not even getting the generic response of, ‘Thank you for your email.’ We’re not getting anything. It’s just nothing coming back. How are you representing everybody if you’re not accessible?”

That’s when her neighbors began urging Newton to run for the state House seat. She talked to her parents, and after prayerful consideration, she decided to step up. Her top priority is bringing unity back to her district. And that’s what she sees happening: “I knock on people’s doors. I talk to everybody because, yes, I’m running as a Democrat, but when I win – because I like to say when I win – I’m going to be serving everybody. It’s not the little select groups that I’ll be serving. I feel like right now, with the incumbent, that is what’s happening, and that’s why we’re being left behind. People are being forgotten, and it shouldn’t be that way.”

Out knocking on doors, she says, “We’re having good conversations. And when I say I’m running for North Carolina House, they’re like, ‘wait, what? Let’s talk.’ It’s a whole other vibe. It’s a sense of… I know who you are. I trust you.”

Newton believes work should pay enough for individuals and families to thrive and points out that a living wage is at least $18.70 an hour, not the national minimum wage of $7.25, which is the current minimum wage in the state. She wants to help small businesses and prioritize working families over corporations. As a mother, she wants to invest in kids: better schools with better pay for teachers, a funding model that doesn’t hurt rural schools and a head start for every child. She believes healthcare is a necessity, not a luxury. One of the counties in her district ranks as one of the unhealthiest in the state. Rural areas don’t have enough medical providers, and hospitals are closing. The burden falls especially heavily on veterans who have to drive over an hour and a half to get care. Newton would also like to see expanded programs that promote food as medicine. And she doesn’t want young people to leave the area because they can’t find good jobs after college. She would like to see grants for entrepreneurs, protections for farmland, and funding to revitalize downtowns.

Newton is the first to admit running for office was intimidating. But she’s just approaching it the only way she knows how: hard work. Her only previous experience fundraising was plate sales at church. So she and her mom and aunties have held “plate sales.” For $12, people can buy a plate with homemade fried chicken, chicken and rice, potato salad, green beans, a slice of cake, and a drink. Last time, they sold over 300 plates, and when they started running out of potato salad, Newton was in the kitchen peeling potatoes. “These people paid for a full plate, and they are going to get everything I told them they’d get.” Newton and her family raised over $3,000 with the plate sale. “Not everybody who bought those plates was a Democrat,” she pointed out. “There were Republicans, too. Unaffiliated.”

“It’s been really eye-opening,” Newton says. “I go knock on doors and I get inspired. I’m supposed to be inspiring other people, but… I’m not saying that I know what Obama feels like, but when he was talking about hope, I’m like, this is what he was talking about. This is amazing. This is unity coming back.”

Clearly, Newton herself does inspire others. Her campaign has raised nearly $100,000 from individual donors, no corporate PACs.

Newton sees all the plates of food and all the dollars donated as conferring a responsibility on her: “When I win in November, it won’t be me focused on Democratic goals, it’s going to be me focused on the goals of people in Columbus and Robeson counties, because they’re the ones who elected me to be in office, and they’re the ones who need me, and they are the voices that I’m supposed to be taking to Raleigh.”

Support Brittany and her fellow North Carolina candidates who are running in districts that went uncontested last cycle by clicking here or on the button below.

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Collage of images from https://www.oliverforhouse.com/ and social media

These are the Downballot Diaries – stories of and from some of the people Every State Blue is supporting this cycle.

Every State Blue’s projects crowdfund support for underfunded Democrats running for state legislature – typically in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts in the country. We’re redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere.

We support people running hard in the hardest places.

Indigo Oliver is one of those people. This is her story.

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As a licensed mental health therapist who specializes in trauma care, Indigo Oliver sees first-hand the effects of government neglect.

And so she is running to represent District 47 in Oklahoma’s House of Representatives.

“I’ve always been very concerned about politics in Oklahoma,” said Oliver, “but being a therapist – especially working with people whose mental health problems are exacerbated by the systems we live in in this state – is so frustrating. It feels like I’m taking a bucket trying to bail out someone’s boat, and people are shooting holes in the bottom of it.”

For example, just this year:

• Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Texas-based Tad Nelson & Associates found that Oklahoma ranks No. 1 in the nation for domestic violence among women and men.

• MAP, an independent think tank based in Boulder, ranks Oklahoma’s LGBTQ policy score an abysmal -6.75 out of 49.

• And the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranked Oklahoma 48^th in education (only Alaska and New Mexico scored lower).

Meanwhile, recently Oklahoma’s governor, Kevin Stitt, signed legislation that raises to $275 million the funding cap on the state’s private school tax credit program, a move that de-prioritizes public education. Gov. Stitt also eliminated a statewide council on homelessness, and has pushed to have encampments of people without housing cleared which studies show is an ineffective means of dealing with homelessness. The people living rough generally always return to reestablish their camp.

Oliver wants to bring data-driven solutions to her state, and she’s finding plenty of people in Mustang and the surrounding areas who agree.

“I’ve been knocking doors, and such a large portion of people are registered Republican, but we also have a lot of independents and Democrats,” Oliver said. “Whatever the party, we are agreeing on priorities.”

Voter priorities that cross party lines, said Oliver, include building a strong public education system, particularly for the state’s children, and making accessible adequate mental health care.

“A lot of people in our state are aware that insurance says it covers mental health, but that is not what’s happening, especially in rural areas,” she said.

Voters also have told Oliver they’d like to see a little more humanity in politics.

“The big things we talk about are really just people wanting more compassion and more professionalism in our state legislature,” she said. “We have a lot of proposed data centers around us, and there’s a lack of transparency around decisions that affect people’s drinking water and utility bills.”

Democrats in her deeply-red district tend to feel isolated, though they shouldn’t, Oliver said.

“When I knock on a Democrat’s door, they will say, ‘I am the only one in my neighborhood,’ but I’ve talked to 50 of their neighbors who are also Democrats,” said Oliver. “It’s an illusion that there aren’t any Democrats in Oklahoma and it serves the narrative that there’s no way this could happen. Definitely, statistically we have way less Democrats, but it’s not as miniscule a number as you might think.”

Oliver chose her profession early after benefitting from therapy as a girl. She earned a bachelor of arts in psychology degree from Excelsior College in Albany, New York, and a master’s degree in education in professional counseling from the University of Oklahoma. She opened her practice in 2021.

“I loved my psychology classes, loved learning how to support people when life experiences are too much to process alone,” she said.

Oliver’s mother is a NICU nurse, her wife works in healthcare IT, and she brings a wealth of information and experiences to a legislature heavy on attorneys. She’s said she’s seen how inadequate systems affect vulnerable families, and she decided she was done sitting on the sidelines.

“All these bills affect people’s mental health,” Oliver said. “I am able to talk about what the American Psychological Association says, what the American Counseling Association says. There is a lot of evidence on what’s the best path forward if we can bring that expertise, and cut through the political noise.”

The district she’s seeking to represent encompasses Mustang, a bit of Yukon and Oklahoma City, and voters there haven’t had a Democratic candidate for state representative since 2018. Oliver said she’s both running to win, and she’s running to show others that winning is possible.

“I am knocking on doors and sometimes a child will be there with their parent and they’ll ask, ‘What’s a state representative,’ and I talk to them about how we vote in our state, and what’s important is that they can some day run for office, too. I am showing people you can run, even if you haven’t seen someone who looks like you doing it. I can widen the door for people.”

Support Indigo and her fellow Oklahoma candidates who are running in districts that went uncontested last cycle by clicking here or on the button below. 100% of your contribution goes to the candidates.

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Learn more about Every State Blue and our projects (Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio, Blue Tennessee, and First In Line), here.

Kylie Kilmer and volunteers before a local parade. Image credit, @kilmerforkansas

These are the Downballot Diaries – stories of and from some of the people Every State Blue is supporting this cycle.

Every State Blue’s projects crowdfund support for underfunded Democrats running for state legislature – typically in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts in the country. We’re redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere.

We support people running hard in the hardest places.

Kylie Kilmer is one of those people. This is her story.

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As a teacher of students who are blind and low-vision in Kansas, Kylie Kilmer has come to understand politics on the ground level.

“If there’s one thing that’s underfunded in Kansas, it’s special education,” said Kilmer. “You hear people say that schools have too much money, but ask any special ed teacher, and you don’t see that.”

She’s running for the state House of Representatives to represent people in District 70. She wants to be the voice for special and early education, and for rural, working Kansans. Her choice was made easier when she realized the seat she’s seeking has been unopposed for the last several years.

Policy has long been Kilmer’s happy place.

“I think when I was younger it was funneled more into activism and volunteer work and community service,” she said. “As I’ve gotten older, I have morphed that into sitting on boards and talking about policy. That kind of thing is interesting to me. I can make a meaningful difference without always making the most noise.”

She said she spoke to local protesters recently and applauded them but said that “work gets done around the board table, too.”

Kilmer grew up in Herington in the eastern/central part of the state, in a family not overly burdened with political involvement. She said her father, a retired union railroad worker, registered to vote just this year so he can vote for her, and there’s no question that her mother, a life-long registered Republican, will do the same. In fact, Kilmer is getting plenty of traction among the state GOP.

“I live in Abilene, home of Pres. Eisenhower’s library,” Kilmer said. “It’s easy to connect with people who identify as Eisenhower Republicans or Bob Dole Republicans. They don’t align with the Republican party today.”

In fact, a few supporters from the other side of the aisle asked her to print up “Republican for Kylie Kilmer” so she did.

Collage of images from Kylie Kilmer’s social media feed

Kilmer is proud that 94% of her campaign funds are from individual donors. That’s by design.

“I don’t want to be held to lobbyists and special interest groups,” she said. “I want to be the candidate for working class.”

That includes the rural voters, and while Kilmer understands candidates who focus on the population centers in nine Kansas counties (among them Sedgwick, which includes Wichita, and Wyandotte, home of Kansas City, Kan.), and a Democratic party that might give District 70 up for lost. But Kilmer plans to knock on every door (all 13,000+ of them)

“My race is proving that District 70 is worth spending time in,” she said. “There are a lot of people here who will cross party lines for the right candidate.”

And besides, she said, in a heavily-red district, “I have talked to lots of Republicans, and not a single person has been mean to me. Everybody has been at least Midwest kind, and for most of them, we can agree on some policy.”

Not all Republicans agree with the current administration’s policies are tactics, she said.

“Politics are so divided right now,” Kilmer said, “and more than ever, we need Democrats to step up to the plate and say, ‘This is not okay.’”

Kilmer earned a bachelor’s degree in recreation at Pittsburg State University and a master’s in special education – visual disabilities from Northern Illinois University. She also interned at New York’s Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Adults.

She and her husband, Austin, a disabled Navy veteran who works in law enforcement technology, have three young children and some backyard chickens.

Today, candidates like Kylie are running in what otherwise would have been uncontested districts all across the country. These good neighbors have stepped up for their communities, giving them a voice and a choice in this election, boosting turnout and vote share for Democrats statewide, and making much-needed progress in some of the reddest places.

You can help them. Support Kylie and her fellow Kansas candidates who are running in districts that went uncontested last cycle by clicking here or on the button below. 100% of your contribution goes to the candidates.

Chip In to First In Line Kansas

Learn more about Every State Blue and our projects (Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio, Blue Tennessee, and First In Line), here.

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Every State Blue’s projects crowdfund support for underfunded Democrats running for state legislature – typically in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts in the country. We’re redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere.

We fund people running hard in the hardest places.

Mark Yonkman is one of those people. This is his story.

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Mark W. Yonkman may have a career trajectory like no other.

Yonkman went from working on his family farm, to school and then law school, to serving as corporate counsel for a Fortune 500 company, and then he moved back to the farm. Now, the Democrat wants to go to Lansing to represent Michigan State Senate’s 36^th district and bring all the skills he’s learned along the way.

In fact, “I’m the only corporate and securities lawyer to run for state legislature,” Yonkman said. “People just don’t do that.”

After studying in a one-room school (where his aunt was his teacher), Yonkman earned an undergraduate degree at Kalamazoo College, and a law degree at Wayne State Law School. He started his career at Pepper Hamilton, a top-tier law firm in Philadelphia, then moved on to Comerica Bank, and M&T Bank.

After his parents died just before the pandemic, Yonkman retired from banking and returned to Michigan, which his Dutch family had homesteaded in the late 1800s.

The Covid epidemic hit and during the shutdown he and one of his daughters decided to get the farm going again. He and his daughter both felt the disconnect the Democratic party had and has with rural voters. He even wrote a book about how the party could be better, “Reclaim the Rural Vote and Win in 2024.”

“I’ve been to a couple of Democratic conventions and events, and I can introduce myself as a whole bunch of different things,” Yonkman said. “I can say I have a small farm, and 24 head of black Angus cattle and I’m trying regenerative farming, and their eyes glaze over. They smile, and walk away.

“If I go up and say I’m the former general counsel of a Fortune 500 company, they actually flinch. ‘So you’re like Elon Musk.’ He’s smart, capable, and that’s the reason he is where he is. You may not like him but that’s my peer group.

“But then if I say that I was a foster home for the City of Detroit and and I have two black daughters, oh my God. Kumbaya.”

As he worked to revive the farm, Yonkman began writing down the issues rural voters talk about, which he heard as a member of his local Farm Bureau, where he serves as chair of policy development, at the Township Hall, at church, at the library where his daughter is a librarian, and from people who stop by the farm. Rural people talk to one another. He started to realize that the rural voter “has become the largest under-represented minority group in politics, even though it represents up to a third of the Electoral College vote that matters,” he said.

Eventually people began recruiting him to run for office – colleagues at the Farm Bureau, neighbors, Township officials, in each case both Republicans and Democrats.

“So, three things,” Yonkman said. “Democrats make fun of farmers. Paul Krugman says they always vote against their own interests, but no, they vote against their own economic interests as defined by Paul. You think it’s all economic, it’s not. When you say you’re a farmer, Democrats treat you like you’re really dumb.”

For example: The Farm Bureau sends 300 farmers and their spouses to Lansing every year to have lunch with their legislators. Yonkman said it’s a low-key opportunity for elected officials to meet constituents, but the first year Yonkman was involved with the lunch, just one Democrat showed up. The next year, after massive outreach by Yonkman and others, he could identify only two Democrats who showed up.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Republicans, Yonkman said, at least know to reach out.

“Twice before the Harris election, I’m in the house the phone rings, a professional woman is on the line and formally addresses me: ‘Mr. Yonkman, could you please hold for the President, he would like to talk to you.’ It’s cool. I know what he’s doing. He set up a call with a bunch of farmers in Michigan. He comes on and gives a rambling speech, but what he said is not important. The important thing is that he called me. Naturally, the next day I started telling people about the call. I then realized that I’m campaigning for this guy. People get angry about the things Trump does well, but he’s successful for a reason. We should look at the things he’s doing well, and be aware.”

During the Harris campaign, Yonkman said he reached out to a state Democratic official to remind him that the campaign needed to talk to farmers, and he was told no, that the farm vote wasn’t significant enough – it’s less than 1% of the vote.

“Oh my God, no,” said Yonkman. “One of Trump’s gifts is that he is unburdened by data. He looks at how people feel, which is what’s important. I would say that 15% of voters view themselves as a farmer. I wasn’t picked up in any data as a farmer, but I’ll always be a farmer. We had the loan crisis and this crisis and that crisis where people lost their farms, and those people are still farmers and they’re bitter farmers. If Republicans lob them a carrot every once in a while, they’ll do the campaigning for me. Just as you want to make money while you sleep, you also want to get voters while you sleep. Democrats don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff.”

Political operatives, he said, would be smart if they paid attention to the rural vote. The farmers may be registered Republican, but they are far more liberal than that would appear, Yonkman said. Otherwise, voters get the likes of Yonkman’s opponent, the incumbent Michele Hoitenga, an election denier who still won with a walloping 66.3% of the 36^th District’s votes in 2022.

Mark Yonkman, running for Michigan State Senate in District 36. Image credit @yonkmanforsenate.

But Yonkman is up for the challenge. As a single gay man in Detroit, he adopted two daughters. And he knows that the Michigan he lives is not the Michigan politicians necessarily see.

“If you’d asked me 30 years ago where I’d want rural Boon to be 30 years ago from then, they moved past what I’d have hoped for,” said Yonkman.

When he has attended local Republican events, Yonkman says he has been treated with enthusiasm. He talks about the issues -- including hiring of migrant workers, food security, and housing. And he comes prepared.

“When I speak at events, I always have PowerPoint slides and data points,” Yonkman said. “I also prepare an additional set of slides where I anticipate questions someone might ask. Coming from the Fortune 500, that’s normal. I never criticize the other side’s quarterback by saying that Trump is terrible. He’s so bad. He’s unacceptable. These people know that. That’s not new information.”

“We can all agree on the platitudes. ‘I want lower taxes, more fairness, a unicorn and a leprechaun for every child.’ I don’t talk in platitudes.”

Republicans – from Trump down – have been skilled at reaching out to rural voters and occasionally throwing them a bone. One example involves – weirdly – gas cans. Yonkman said as he was rebuilding the farm, he and his daughter went to auctions to buy equipment. At one, he noticed a pile of old gas cans that were going for $40 to $50 apiece. That was too steep, so they went to Walmart to buy new ones for $19, but when they got back to the farm, those cheaper cans didn’t work on tractors. The gas cans were designed for mowers, for dispensing gasoline to something low, not something like a tractor where the gas can is held aloft. Yonkman returned them to the store, where the woman behind the counter nodded and said, “Oh, yeah, everybody brings these back.”

In this case, a farmer has two choices, he said. One is to order a $15 conversion kit from China, or there’s always the NASCAR fuel dump can for upwards of $300. The president got wind of the issue, and instituted the Make Gas Cans Great Again By Improving Flow. No, that’s not the catchiest title, but the EPA stepped in to encourage manufacturers to incorporate in all new gas cans self-closing vented designs, which makes the gas flow better.

“Even my daughter, who is about as liberal as you can get, liked this idea,” said Yonkman. “Trump has done a bunch of little things like that for farmers. Democrats exercise willful blindness to those things. We need to pay attention to it.”

Republican party officials have told him that his corporate background puts him on the wrong team. Yonkman doesn’t think so, and if he can get his message out to the Michigan voters, he just may rewrite the playbook for Democrats and rural voters.

Today, candidates like Mark are running in red districts all across the country. These good neighbors have stepped up for their communities, giving them a voice and a choice in this election, boosting turnout and vote share for Democrats statewide, and making much-needed progress in some of the reddest places.

You can help them. Support Mark and his fellow Michigan candidates who are running in solid-red districts by clicking here or on the button below. 100% of your contribution goes to the candidates.

Chip In to First In Line Michigan

Learn more about Every State Blue and our projects (Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio, Blue Tennessee, and our First In Line initiative), here.

Mark Yonkman, image credit @yonkmanforsenate on Facebook.

Every State Blue’s projects crowdfund support for underfunded Democrats running for state legislature – typically in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts in the country. With state projects in Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee – and First In Line, our national initiative funding candidates in districts that went uncontested last cycle – we’re redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere.

These are the Downballot Diaries – stories of and from some of the people Every State Blue is supporting this cycle. We fund people running hard in the hardest places – places where a Democrat hasn’t shown up on the ballot in years, sometimes decades.

Leila Staton is one of those people. This is her story.

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Leila Staton knows how to get things done.

She’s helped change the rules in Iowa so children who testify in trials don’t have to face their abusers in a courtroom.

She co-founded an advocacy organization called Insufferable Wenches that organizes for local candidates. The group grew from just Staton and her mother to over 400 members across Iowa. The group summarizes state legislative bills into plainspoken language and then posts them on social media so busy Iowans can know what’s going on in Des Moines.

In 2024, Leila Staton reached out to the Democratic Party to learn how best to support local candidates. Instead, she learned there were no Democratic candidates running in her county. In fact, there was no functioning Democratic Party in her county. She says, “The Democrats were neglecting rural communities like they were paid to do it.”

So Leila Staton decided to run herself – to represent the 32,000 citizens of District 54 in Iowa’s house.

Leila Staton is 22 years old.

She was 21 when she filed to run, and in the first fundraising cycle, she fell only $258 short of the Republican incumbent’s donations. The next cycle, she bested him by $10,000. “And all my donors are people,” she emphasizes. “His are PACS that you can’t trace. I could count the people who donated to him on one hand.”

As a candidate, she’s knocked on 2,500 doors across her rural districts, so many that her knuckles hurt. (“I use the heel of my hand now,” she jokes.) Often she’s the first candidate ever to come to those doors. “People have lived there forty years and never had someone knock,” she says. “I’m super awkward, but I ask them what keeps them up at night? Some of them are triple Trumpers, but I tell them, ‘I don’t waste time. We are going to find something to agree on.’”

Staton and supporters door knocking on one of the hottest days of the summer, with her signature “It’s Cool to Care” signs. Image credit @LeilaForIowa

And they do agree on a lot of things: Nobody wants data centers. Most Iowans want campaign reform -- corporate funding out of campaigns, for instance, and term limits. They want agricultural monopolies out of their state. They’re against eminent domain being used by private companies. They don’t want tax dollars going to private schools through vouchers.

“I grew up here,” Staton says, “and I know how people think. I would argue that rural Republicans are probably more progressive than Republicans in general. We agree on education, on monopolies, on data centers. We disagree on abortion. To flip a rural district, you have to talk about progressive policies in a conservative way; for instance, if the state can tell you to have a baby, it can also tell you to abort.”

Staton makes the case that the strict 6-week abortion ban has hurt everyone in the state: “We have the fewest per capita ob-gyns of any state. We’re in a complete maternal healthcare desert. People in my district have to drive two hours to find the nearest ob-gyn, and that’s if the doctor takes their insurance. We had five Planned Parenthoods in the state; now we have one.” She notes that the crisis is exacerbated because birthing clinics have closed due to Medicaid cuts. “It’s hard to keep full hospitals open in rural Iowa,” she adds.

Staton may be young, but she stresses that she is not bringing a fresh perspective. “If anything,” she says, “it’s jaded.” She remembers people dancing on tv when Obama got elected but “my memorable presidencies, my entire existence has been under Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Donald Trump again.” She cares deeply about reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, trans rights, education, and the environment. “I’m really only a doomer on the environment while fully understanding that we can reduce part of the harm,” she says. “We can’t reduce the damage that’s been done. Companies have been extracting out of our world for so long – without any accountability. That’s really what disappoints me in history.”

Leila Staton, Iowa House District 54; Image Credit @LeilaForIowa

Leila Staton hopes her candidacy – win or lose – will inspire other young people to get involved with the process. “We need them,” she says bluntly. “If a Democrat in rural Iowa can campaign one-hundred percent grassroots, any Democrat can do it.”

“Because the harsh reality is that the people making these laws don’t have to live under them for very long.”

Today, candidates like Leila are running in what otherwise would have been uncontested districts all across the country. These good neighbors have stepped up for their communities, giving them a voice and a choice in this election, boosting turnout and vote share for Democrats statewide, and making much-needed progress in some of the reddest places.

You can help them. Support Leila and her fellow Iowa candidates who are running in districts that went uncontested last cycle by clicking here or on the button below. 100% of your contribution goes to the candidates.

Chip In to First In Line Iowa

Learn more about Every State Blue and our projects (Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio, Blue Tennessee, and First In Line), here.

Subscribe now

Mike Frantz and supporters at a parade staging. Image credit: Mike Frantz for Iowa State Senate Facebook

Every State Blue’s projects crowdfund support for underfunded Democrats running for state legislature – typically in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts in the country. With state projects in Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee – and First In Line, our national initiative funding candidates in districts that went uncontested last cycle – we're redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere.

These are the Downballot Diaries – stories of and from some of the people Every State Blue is supporting this cycle. We fund people running hard in the hardest places – places where a Democrat hasn’t shown up on the ballot in years, sometimes decades.

Mike Frantz is one of those people. This is his story.

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Mike Frantz is the kind of neighbor you want showing up when trouble comes. He’s a disaster-relief volunteer who’ll drive an hour to help if you’re burned out of your home – and he’ll bring teddy bears for the kids.

Now that he’s retired from a job in college enrollment, Mike Frantz, 62, keeps showing up for his neighbors in Iowa – not only for families on their worst days but also at legislative forums. He stands up in local town halls to talk about what’s gone wrong in the state and what policies might make it right. “Iowa’s like a mini-me of the federal government,” he says, referring to the Republican stranglehold on the legislature and governorship. Republicans have pushed through a regressive flat tax on income, have sent tax dollars to private schools, and have continued to promote visceral culture wars. Meanwhile, cancer rates climb, educational results fall, and everything costs too much.

Party Democrats noticed Frantz was making good sense at the town halls and began urging him to “put my time and effort where my mouth’s been.” So Frantz, the first person in his family to register as a Democrat, is now running as a Democrat for senate in Iowa’s 3^rd district, a Republican-stronghold district that was uncontested by Democrats in the last cycle. Trump won all of the five counties that meet in in 2024, two of them with 80 percent or more of the vote.

Mike Frantz, Democratic nominee for Iowa State Senate, District 3. Image credit: Mike Frantz

So far, Frantz has knocked on doors in 30 of the 33 communities where most of the 60,000 voters in his district live. “I’m doing this to represent you,” he tells anyone who opens the door and accepts his flyer. “Tell me what your interests are.” He hears a lot of despair. “People aren’t happy with where Iowa’s at. They want change. They want some symbol that Iowa doesn’t have to be this way.”

What’s “this way?”

Cancer rates in Iowa are second highest in the nation. It’s one of only three states where rates are rising. Over 21,000 Iowans are diagnosed annually. Frantz points to radon, forever chemicals, and probably nitrates in the water from the corporate agriculture operations that have subsumed the family-farm tradition. He thinks the state should follow the science and act on it. “Do the research and then have the fortitude to follow through on the solutions suggested by the research.”

The state’s education ranking has fallen to 27^th in the nation— after traditionally being in the top one or two slots when Frantz himself was in school. Tax money goes to private schools, often religious, through roughly $8,000 vouchers. Polls show 70 percent of Iowans are opposed to vouchers. Frantz notes, “Knocking on 1,500 doors so far, I’ve found three supporters for vouchers.” He sent his own daughter to private schools but did it on his own dime. “That was my choice, and we paid for it,” he says.

Iowans also notice that civil rights protections are eroding. “I was raised to believe my wife and I should have the same rights. She no longer does — even though sixty percent of Iowans are opposed to the six-week abortion ban.” As for his LGBTQ neighbors, Frantz says, “Everyone should have the same civil rights protections under the law.”

People can’t afford healthcare.

Which has been true in his own family. Frantz grew up hunting pheasant on his grandpa’s century farm but later watched helplessly as that farm got sold to pay for his grandparents’ medical care. He remembers going out one last time with this dog and his gun. “I think I took the last pheasant ever off that land by a family member.” His voice thickens and cracks when he tells that story.

Same with when he talks about helping his neighbors during disasters. Recently, he gave a little girl a teddy bear because all her toys had been destroyed. The little girl gave Frantz a hug. “Next time I’ll drive two hours if somebody needs it,” he told his wife later.

Frantz’s run for office is attracting the support of the people who know him best: his neighbors, even ones who don’t agree with him politically. A Bush Republican came up to Frantz at the bar one night and thrust two one-hundred dollar bills into his hand. Frantz asked if he was sure he wanted to see his name on the public rolls — as a donor for a Democrat. The guy said, “Go get ‘em, Mike.” At the golf course, an evangelical Christian who doesn’t see eye to eye with Frantz on much, donated $25. Frantz says, “He wasn’t so much donating to me as he was contributing to the democratic process.”

Mike Frantz sees running for office as an extension of his volunteer work. “This isn’t an ego trip for me,” he says. He just wants to help Iowans who are struggling. “You do it for your neighbor,” he says.

“Why the hell wouldn’t you do it for everybody?”

Today, candidates like Mike are running in what otherwise would have been uncontested districts all across the country. These good neighbors have stepped up for their communities, giving them a voice and a choice in this election, boosting turnout and vote share for Democrats statewide, and making much-needed progress in some of the reddest places.

You can help them. Support Mike and his fellow Iowa candidates who are running in districts that went uncontested last cycle by clicking here or on the button below. 100% of your contribution goes to the candidates.

Chip In to First In Line Iowa

Learn more about Every State Blue and our projects (Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio, Blue Tennessee, and First In Line), here.

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It was from a fellow named Ron Ruman. He introduced himself formally – name, district, who gave him my number – and then laid out his entire race in three paragraphs like he was writing a letter to a potential investor.

Which, I suppose, he was.

Ron is a township supervisor in Pennsylvania’s 196th state House district. The incumbent had resigned in January, triggering a special election. Before that, the seat had been uncontested since 2014. That’s twelve years without a Democrat on the ballot before Ron put his name in and ran during that special election.

He lost, 56 to 44.

That’s the number that would get written in the headline and reported broadly, probably alongside something like “lost by 12 points.” But there’s a lot that number doesn’t tell you.

He was outspent ten to one. Because he was running in an “unwinnable” race, he got no money from traditional Democratic funders. Even without resources, he had to endure the typical shenanigans – the county sent wrong mail-in ballots to 225 voters in his district. Then they failed to send requested mail-in ballots to 226 independents — which his campaign only found out because a supporter tipped them off.

Even so, Ron overperformed Kamala Harris in that district by 20.5 points.

He won the municipality where both he and his opponent live. He lost in the part of the district he simply couldn’t reach — because he didn’t have the money to get there. And he didn’t have the money to get there because nobody thought he could get close.

It’s another example of the vicious cycle that we see every election season, where we refuse to fund races in places where we can make incredible progress locally and make massive gains statewide because the numbers look dismal. But the numbers look dismal because we refuse to fund races in those same places.

As Ron said in his text to me:

“Money is not the only answer, but it’s a big part. I believe this district can be flipped.”

• • •

We talk a lot about “winnable” races, and I understand why. Ratings groups assign categories – Safe R, Likely R, Lean R – and money flows toward the seats that look like they might flip this cycle. It’s rational, in a narrow sense. If you have a limited pool of dollars, you try to buy the most immediate wins. It’s not a bad strategy in the short term.

But it neglects the fact that you can’t make a district winnable overnight. Progress takes cycles – sometimes many. Someone has to raise their hand to go first, run hard, move the numbers, and come back and do it all over again. Ron Ruman moved the numbers by twenty points with shoe leather and grit and not much more. Imagine what he could do with actual resources.

The other thing that struck me about Ron’s story is that he lives in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a perennial battleground state where the margin in statewide races is often measured in tens of thousands of votes. This is a state where over a billion was spent in political advertising in 2024 – and where both parties invest literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

So it may shock you to learn that in 2024 – during a presidential cycle in a state that has decided the last two presidential elections – there were 49 Pennsylvania state house and senate races that were completely uncontested by Democrats. Another 42 were underfunded.

Our research shows that just having a Democrat on the ballot in an otherwise uncontested district boosts up-ticket vote share by 1.5% in that district. Funding them amplifies the effect. We’re not the only organization that’s found this “reverse coattail” effect.

In other words, every district that goes uncontested and every district that goes underfunded means votes slip through our fingers and make winning statewide that much harder.

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• • •

When I wrote Ron back after his Saturday morning text, I was glad to tell him that he was already included in our crowdfunding campaign called First In Line.

First In Line supports candidates running in state legislative districts that went completely uncontested in the last regular election cycle. Ron is just one of 23 First In Line candidates in Pennsylvania right now. They all have stories and interesting backgrounds. There’s an urban planner. A nurse-turned-healthcare executive. A community organizer. A disability attorney. A third-generation soybean farmer. A school board member.

A collage of Pennsylvania state leg candidates who are running in districts that were uncontested in 2024; images taken from candidate websites; credit: author

These are not career politicians – just people who looked at a blood-red district and said – yeah, I’ll take that on. That’s exactly the kind of person who we want running for office.

They don’t have a rolodex of donors or a big political machine behind them. We can’t even say any of them will win this cycle. But they will move numbers, build infrastructure, build name recognition, and knock on doors that haven’t been knocked on in years.

And some of them – like Ron – will shock people, and prove that the district isn’t as lost as everyone assumed.

Even more of them will contribute to gains in congressional districts, and maybe even critical congressional flips.

They’ll all contribute to progress.

Pennsylvania isn’t the only place this is happening. We have First In Line candidates in dozens of states right now, including the states where the US Senate majority will be decided. Every one of them is doing the hard work of showing up in the hardest places.

Conventional wisdom says these races aren’t worth funding.

I disagree; I think they’re some of the smartest places to invest. Maybe you do, too.

Support PA First In Line

Michele Hornish is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Every State Blue, which funds Democratic state legislative candidates in Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee, and runs First In Line, a national crowdfunding project for candidates running in some of the reddest districts in the country. Learn more about their projects at https://everystateblue.org

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On April 9 at 7 PM Central, we are hosting a Zoom event to officially launch First In Line – our new national crowdfunding program to boost Democratic state legislative candidates who are running in some of the reddest places in the country.

In 2024, nearly 1 in 5 state legislative districts across the country had no Democratic candidate at all. Another 1 in 5 had a Democrat on the ballot – but running on a shoestring.

State legislatures control healthcare access, reproductive rights, voting laws, education funding, and worker protections. They matter more to daily life than Congress does. When Democrats don’t contest those races, extremists fill them by default.

But it’s hard for potential candidates to decide to run if they don’t think they’ll have support. That’s why Every State Blue is proud to have raised and distributed over $1 million to Democratic state legislative nominees since 2017 – across three states (MO, OH, and TN).

We fund the candidates that typically get left behind – rural districts, long-shot races, places where showing up is itself a statement. Ohio Democratic leadership called us a “game-changer” for rural Democrats.

First in Line takes that work to every state.

Our conversation Thursday night is part launch and part celebration – because we’re excited to share this project with you!

We’ll be joined by Jess Craven (Chop Wood, Carry Water), Kate Barr (Can’t Win Victory Fund), Jess Piper (Blue Missouri), and Amanda Potter – a South Dakota candidate who is one of the very first First In Line recipients.

I really hope you can join us on Thursday night, too. These are the conversations that remind all of us why this work is worth doing, and why we do it together.

Click here to register for the First In Line launch call Thursday April 9 at 7pm central.

Learn more about First In Line at https://everystateblue/first-in-line.

In solidarity,

Michele Hornish, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Every State Blue

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In 2024, she ran again. She lost by 13.7 points – an even larger margin than the first time.

Most people would have stopped.

But Bobbi didn’t stop. She kept organizing, kept showing up, kept building relationships in Wolfeboro and Ossipee and Tuftonboro – in a district that Donald Trump carried by 9 points, in a county where a seven-term Republican incumbent had never really had to break a sweat.

She didn’t even have a trendline to point to or a “we’re closing the gap” narrative to sustain her. Just had the conviction that the work mattered, even when the scoreboard didn’t show it.

And then, last fall, that incumbent packed up and moved to Texas.

The door opened.

And when it did, Bobbi Boudman was ready.

Last Tuesday, she won that seat – even though she was outspent five-to-one and running against a Republican backed by the former state Senate president. And just like that – seemingly out of the blue – Boudman secured the 28th Democratic state legislative flip since Trump returned to the White House.

But it was a result four years in the making.

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We live in a world where three seconds is too long for a website to load. Where attention spans are measured in swipes and we’ve all been trained to expect immediate results or move on.

Democratic politics, by and large, has absorbed that lesson. Money chases flippable districts. Initiatives and organizations optimize for this cycle’s wins. Meanwhile, candidates like Boudman in deep-red areas struggle to get the resources to effectively organize their community.

That exposes a deeper problem – a sort of self-perpetuating cycle that we need to break free from.

When we don’t invest in a district, the candidate can’t run an effective campaign. When they can’t run an effective campaign, they lose – often badly. When they lose badly, the data reflects that. And when the data reflects that, nobody invests in the district.

Round and round and round we go, each cycle producing new evidence for the conclusion we’d already reached before it started.

When we wait for the data to change before we go in and push hard, we miss the fact that we can be part of the change. Districts change every cycle. Neighborhoods shift. New voters move in. Old assumptions lose their grip. The question isn’t whether change is happening – it’s whether Democrats are present to shape it, or absent while Republicans consolidate it.

Not every race needs the same level of investment. But too often Democrats look at a district’s partisan lean, see a number that doesn’t excite us, and decide to sit it out – as if the data is a fixed fact rather than a living thing that responds to what we do.

Because inactivity is activity. When we leave a district uncontested, we’re not being neutral. We’re actively deciding to cede the field. We’re telling voters there that nobody’s coming for them. We’re letting the Republican incumbent coast, unaccountable, unchallenged, year after year. And we’re making it that much harder for the data to trend in our direction – because you can’t build a trend you’re not participating in.

Bobbi Boudman wasn’t waiting for her district’s numbers to move before she decided it was worth fighting for. She was out there making her own conditions. And when circumstances finally shifted – when the incumbent moved away and the door cracked open – she was ready to push through it because she’d never stopped working.

That’s what it looks like when someone refuses to wait for permission, and just gets to work doing the thing and making a difference.

We appreciate that attitude at Every State Blue, because it’s who we are, too.

We fund Democratic nominees in the hardest places – the rural districts, the deeply red corners of the country where conventional wisdom says we shouldn’t bother. Most of them don’t win. That’s not the point.

The point is that they show up. They learn their districts. They knock on doors and introduce themselves to neighbors who’ve never had a Democrat campaign for their vote. They give people a choice and a voice. They make Republicans defend ground they assumed was free and spend money they thought they’d save.

And they build something that lasts – even when the results don’t show it yet.

And then sometimes, the incumbent moves away. Or a wave builds. Or the moment arrives. And the candidate who’s been quietly, stubbornly, consistently showing up is suddenly positioned to win a race that used to look unwinnable.

That’s not luck, or winning a race out of the blue. It’s the final payoff of years of steady, sweaty, very unglamorous work.

Bobbi Boudman knows it. Every State Blue believes it.

Run everywhere. And keep coming back.

Every State Blue crowdfunds support for underfunded Democratic nominees running in some of the reddest places in America. With state projects in Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee (and an upcoming special project we think you’ll love!), we’re redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere. Join Blue Ohio here. Join Blue Missouri here. Join Blue Tennessee here. Or support Every State Blue’s mission here.

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Image Credit: Bobbi Boudman Campaign Instagram, available at https://www.instagram.com/boudmanpolitics/

He didn’t squeak by, either. He won by 14 points.

That’s a 31-point swing.

There are all the typical caveats. It was a special election. Weird weather. Specific local dynamics. The Texas Tribune reported that some Democrats are counseling restraint – one congressman noted that “Texas is far from becoming one of the country’s liberal bastions.”

Point taken. But also – conventional wisdom would look at a district Trump won by 17 points in 2024 and consider it unwinnable.

Taylor Rehmet not only didn’t get that memo – he actually proved it was wrong.

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How He Did It

According to the Texas Tribune’s coverage, Rehmet’s campaign couldn’t match his opponent’s fundraising – she raised $2.6 million. So instead of trying to compete on the airwaves, his campaign focused on something else entirely.

Talking – and listening – to people.

They set a goal to knock on 40,000 doors, and worked backwards from that number. They spent time training volunteers on how to be better active listeners. They encouraged volunteers to reach out on behalf of the voter if they didn’t have the answer to a question – and sometimes the team would call Rehmet right then and there, in front of the voter, if they didn’t know.

In an environment where people want an authentic human being to listen to them and respond to their concerns, that level of personal attention is exactly the kind of thing that can cut through political partisanship like a hot knife through butter.

His message of affordability and public schools, and his background as a working person and a veteran, resonated throughout the district.

So Saturday showed that a great message, a great messenger, and a great campaign can flip even a ruby red district.

While it’s true that we can’t extrapolate from this race to every race across the country, it also proves that we can’t count anyone out.

Why This Matters to Every State Blue

Since 2017 we’ve been funding exactly these kinds of candidates. The ones running in ruby red districts. The ones that get written off. The ones who can’t compete dollar-for-dollar with their opponents and have to make every single dollar count.

We use what we call the “bathtub method” – we fund first the nominees who have the least, then keep filling buckets until we run out of money.

That means we’re typically funding the reddest, most rural parts of the three states where we have active projects (Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee).

But when folks ask me – why bother funding races you can’t win? – my first answer is to not count anybody out, because life comes at you fast and we’re in unprecedented times. Being prepared to take advantage of opportunities and momentum is smart.

But besides that, even when you don’t win, showing up matters. It forces Republicans to spend money defending seats they took for granted. It gives voters a choice. It speaks truth to power, builds infrastructure, creates a volunteering community, and tells voters that you’re willing to work hard to earn their respect.

And sometimes it changes the entire conversation.

The Tribune quoted one Democratic operative who said about Rehmet’s opponent – a MAGA activist backed by Trump himself: “Taylor Rehmet is just an absolute reflection of that district. Leigh Wambsganss is an absolute reflection of national MAGA. The voters decided which one they like, and it wasn’t a close call.”

That’s the choice. Do you want someone who reflects your community and fights for your daily struggles? Or do you want someone who reflects a national partisan brand?

Turns out, even in deep red Texas, voters prefer the former.

So remind me, why do we write off these districts?

Every single cycle, the conventional wisdom tells us which races are “worth” investing in. And every single cycle, candidates in “unwinnable” districts prove that conventional wisdom wrong – if they have the resources to compete.

That’s where you come in.

When you join Blue Missouri or Blue Ohio or Blue Tennessee as a monthly donor, you’re not just supporting one candidate. You’re funding an entire slate of nominees who would otherwise run with almost nothing. You’re making it possible for them to knock on those doors, have those conversations, and give voters a real choice.

You’re also making recruitment easier – because candidates in tough districts need to know someone has their back.

And you’re changing the landscape – because when Republicans have to defend previously safe seats, that’s resources they can’t spend elsewhere.

On Saturday, Texas sent a message. But it’s a message we’ve been hearing from our nominees in Missouri and Ohio and Tennessee for years now.

People are hungry for leaders who see them, understand them, and fight for their actual daily struggles – not just the culture war headlines. People will respond to authentic organizing and genuine connection – even in the reddest districts.

And people are not as divided as the powerful want us to believe.

Taylor Rehmet showed up in a Trump+17 “unwinnable” district, talked about what actually matters to the people living in that district, and won by 14 points.

That’s the playbook – or it should be.

And at Every State Blue, we’ve been running it since 2017.

So let’s keep running everywhere. Let’s keep trusting voters. Let’s keep funding and empowering the nominees others ignore.

Because we can't predict where the next breakthrough will happen. But we can make sure we're there, and we’re ready, when it does.

Ready to support downballot Democrats in red districts?

Join Blue Missouri | Join Blue Ohio | Join Blue Tennessee

Or support the scrappy Every State Blue team that makes it all possible: Support ESB

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P.S. If you want to read more about the Texas race, the Texas Tribune has excellent coverage. And if you want to hear more about why running everywhere matters, check out my recent Small Deeds post.

Trump isn’t wrong. The race for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District – a seat he carried by 22 points just last year – ends tonight. As of this morning, it was statistically tied.

That’s not supposed to happen. Not in a district drawn to be R+22. Not in a seat where the previous Republican won by 22 points. Not in rural and suburban Tennessee.

But Aftyn Behn, the Democratic nominee, is making it happen anyway.

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Why should you care about this race?

Because it proves exactly what Every State Blue has been saying all along: there are no truly unwinnable districts when Democrats show up, get funded, and fight.

Aftyn’s story is the story we see repeated in every state where ESB works. She’s a state representative who was elected in a 2023 special election to represent part of Nashville. She’s a former social worker and community organizer. And when Mark Green resigned his congressional seat, she decided to run – not because the numbers looked good, but because someone needed to fight for working Tennesseans.

The response from Republicans tells you everything you need to know about what happens when Democrats run everywhere:

• Trump personally attacked her, claiming she “hates Christianity”

• House Speaker Mike Johnson flew to Tennessee to campaign for Van Epps

• MAGA Inc. and the Club for Growth spent over $1.7 million in the closing weeks

• Republicans are calling this race a “five-alarm fire” – in a district they drew for themselves and won by 22 points in 2024

Why are they so scared? Because Aftyn is running on affordability – healthcare costs, grocery prices, keeping rural hospitals open. The issues that matter to actual people. And she’s overperforming everywhere.

Win or lose, this race proves the “run everywhere” strategy works.

When Democrats show up in supposedly “unwinnable” districts, Republicans have to spend millions defending seats they thought were safe (that’s millions they can’t spend in actually competitive races). Local voters finally have someone fighting for them who shares their values.

And sometimes – as we’re seeing tonight in Tennessee – the “impossible” becomes … possible.

This is exactly why Every State Blue exists. This is why we fund Democratic nominees in the reddest, most rural, most gerrymandered districts in Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee – the races that everyone else writes off before they even start.

Aftyn Behn’s race shows what’s possible when Democrats stop ceding territory to Republicans. When we fund candidates in every district. When we believe that every voter deserves a choice, and a voice, and a chance.

Regardless of tonight’s outcome, you can help make more races like this possible.

Every State Blue has distributed over $1 million to downballot Democratic nominees since 2017, using our bottom-up “bathtub” funding method that prioritizes the candidates with the least resources first. We’re building the infrastructure for Democrats to compete everywhere – not just in the districts that political consultants deem “flippable.”

You can support our work here.

And join our Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio, and Blue Tennessee communities – and help us fund the next Aftyn Behn.

Because when we run everywhere, when we fund everyone, when we never give up on any community – that’s when we start making progress. That’s when we start winning.

Let’s run everywhere,

Michele Hornish
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Every State Blue

P.S. – Whether Aftyn wins or loses tonight, the fact that Republicans had to pour millions into defending this “safe” seat is itself a victory. It’s proof that our strategy works. But we can only keep doing this work with your support. Please join us.

Image Credit: https://www.instagram.com/aftynbehn4tn/

That's my favorite question. It's one we get a lot, and it might be one you've asked.

Because Every State Blue's projects don't fund the flippable districts in the flippable states. Quite the opposite.

We fund the people running in the reddest, roughest, toughest districts. We lift up folks running in the places where it's hard to find someone to run, let alone get them funding. We proudly give funding first to the nominees that have the least – filling a critical gap in Democrats’ support structure, because without us, many of these nominees would quite literally have nothing.

We don't expect any of the nominees that we support to win.

So why on earth would we support folks who are going to lose?

Well, for starters, because what these folks are doing – often running against some of the most MAGA-extreme, powerful, state legislators in their state – is one of the most patriotic things you can do. Just by running, they're telling the Republicans that they're going to fight back.

Leaving so much of red state America uncontested just rewards extreme Republicans for being extreme.

Did you know that the sponsor of Texas’s abortion ban, SB8, ran uncontested? Or that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson ran unopposed in the Louisiana state legislature (twice), and had no opponent when he ran for Congress in 2022? Or that in 2022, Democrats had candidates in only 54 of Tennessee’s 99 state house districts – and 13 of those Democratic nominees had less than $5,000?

It’s true.

Think through the most extreme policies you’ve heard of coming out of state legislatures – and more often than not, they originated in a super-red, gerrymandered district that has been uncontested, or has had an undersupported Democratic challenger, for decades.

We need folks pushing back against the MAGA machine – and rebuilding Democratic infrastructure – at every level, in every state. But that’s not going to happen unless we band together and support the folks who are doing the hard work of running in these districts.

We’d be wrong not to also mention the significant data-backed electoral benefit to running – and supporting – nominees in every district. In 2020 we asked a Washington University team to evaluate the impact of running and funding state legislative nominees. They looked at Missouri – and found that simply having a nominee in an otherwise uncontested district provided a 1.5% vote share increase for the top of the ticket. A separate study done by an LSU professor of 20 states’ state legislative races found that minimal funding (which he set at $0.36 per eligible voter) of a challenger led to a turnout increase of 1%.

In other words, running nominees matters. And funding them matters, too.

So by getting funding to the nominees who otherwise wouldn't have resources, we're driving turnout and vote share, showing Democrats running in some of the reddest districts in the nation that we appreciate what they're doing, and getting them the tools that they need to fight as fiercely as we need them to.

In each of our Every Blue State projects, after the primary, the community funds are distributed to Democratic nominees using our unique "bottom-up bathtub" method, which sends funds first to those who have the least. We make it possible for them to afford yard signs, post cards, and gas money to reach rural neighbors.

The nominees we support are typically rural, tough as nails, and as kind as can be. 

They're usually shocked when they hear that help is on the way. They thought they were doing this all on their own.

They're so happy to be wrong.

By crowdfunding for underfunded Democrats, we give them the resources they need so they can spend their time door knocking, organizing their communities, and turning out voters. We show them that we value them – we appreciate their effort, and we’re going to give them the resources to give it their best shot.

But we're also showing the Republicans in these states that we're not going to give them free runway anymore. We're going to make them fight for every seat, for every district, and for every vote.

You can probably tell that we’re excited about what we do, and we’re looking forward to sharing more of it with you in the coming months.

We’re glad you’re here.

Let’s run everywhere, every time, with everything we’ve got.

Onward, upward, and in solidarity~
Michele Hornish
Executive Director, Every State Blue

P.S. And hey – if you're not yet a member of our Blue Missouri, Blue Ohio, Blue Tennessee or Forgotten Democrats programs, I sure do hope you'll join.

Our projects primarily support the nominees – not our organization. So if you like what we're doing, please chip in today to help us continue to support projects like these. Thanks in advance – it means more than you know.

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The Vice President ran an excellent campaign. Walz was a good running mate.

At the end of the day, she was a Black and South Asian Woman who sought the support of a still misogynistic and racist electorate for whom a 21% increase in prices since Trump was last president--along with a surge in immigration (though not the violent wave Trump depicted)--were more of an issue than his many crimes, including an attempt to illegally retain power.

We shall see if the substantial portion (anecdotal evidence pointed to 10-15% or maybe a bit more) of his supporters who did not believe his most violent and hateful rhetoric are proven correct (remember, he just wanted to win to stay out of jail, I doubt he cares a bit about what promises he made along the way), or if we are in for a truly vile 4 years (as I mostly expect).

This is not on the Vice President.

This is on the electorate.

While it is still possible Trump will lose the popular vote, it looks like he picked up enough support in the blue states to hold onto his current lead. Trump may be a complete dumpster fire, but his election (unlike 2016, where he decisively lost the popular vote) appears perfectly legitimate.

I do a lot better with adversity than uncertainty, and the last two months have been hard (the last few days harder). Now we know what we face and what our next step must be.

First up, we shore up/retake the House in 2026. I have no idea right now who will be in control, but the margin will be narrow and the best firewall against ugly legislation is control of the House. History tells us that Republicans will lose seats in 2026, let's make sure it's a rout.

Second up, we take back the White House and get starting on fixing everything Trump broke this time (and that Biden did not have time to fix from the last time).

A few minutes ago, I started my monthly recurring donation that will fund the 2028 Democratic Nominee for President. 48 monthly donations add up to A LOT more than I could contribute in one or even a few donations.

It's the first thing I can do to start to retake my country.

Right now. Today.

I hope you will join me.

Join ESB's Presidential Project

It’s an intentional, and direct, violation of constitutional law. There’s another case, directly on point, from 1980, that says requiring displays of the Ten Commandments in public schools is unconstitutional.

The Louisiana state legislature knows this, of course. They didn’t make an honest mistake in passing this law.

This law mandating that the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms is a shot across the bow. A test case. A trial balloon.

Whatever you call it, this is a Republican supermajority state legislature testing whether the Supreme Court is as friendly to Christian nationalist policy as it hopes the Court has become.

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This case may have started in Louisiana. But the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision won’t stay within the state lines of Louisiana – they’ll reverberate nationally, to both Blue and Red states.

And it was all made possible because Louisiana’s state legislature has a Republican supermajority that isn’t incentivized to be anything but extreme – in part because Democrats have all but given up in over half the state.

Louisiana isn’t a purple state, nor a presidential battleground. But it’s not as beet red as you’d think. After all, from 2016 through 2021 it had a Democratic governor. It’s a complicated state, with a jungle primary where the top two vote-getters advance to the general election – regardless of their party affiliation – making analysis of party competitiveness harder.

But the fact remains that in 2023, 59 state house seats out of 105 were completely uncontested by Democrats. 

All but 18 races were decided in the primary. Nine of the 18 races in the general election were between two Republicans. Four more were between two Democrats. 

A total of five general election races were between a Democrat and a Republican.

Five. Out of 105.

The Republican who sponsored Louisiana’s Ten Commandments bill was in one of the many districts that Democrats didn’t contest at all.

By leaving huge swaths of red states uncontested and under-resourced, we’ve unwittingly put extremist state legislators in the perfect position to strip away Constitutional rights and enact their Project 2025 agenda.

This isn’t just a red state problem. It’s an American problem.

~Michele

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P.S. Every State Blue crowdfunds support for underfunded Democrats running in some of the reddest districts in the country. If you believe we should run and fight everywhere, you can support that work here.

Democrats, on the other hand, tend to focus attention and investment on specific high-profile or “flippable” districts, with priority given to federal races … and on races against people we hate, such as Mitch McConnell or Majorie Taylor Greene.

Our result? An inconsistent Democratic support structure that depends more on the celebrity of individual candidates (or their opponents) and the perceived flippability of districts than a strategic, long-term, scalable plan.

Of particular need for attention are state legislative races, which Democrats often leave unchallenged and unsupported, especially in red, rural areas.

Those races are hugely consequential, both for the people living in those states, and nationally. After all, anti-choice, anti-labor, and anti-voting rights legislation is passed in the states.

The unfortunate truth is, while Democrats focus their attention on federal races, the issues that most impact our daily lives are decided in races that Democrats don’t pay much attention to – and often don’t contest at all.

We need to change our approach and expand our field of play.

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We wondered: what is the impact of running and funding Democratic state legislative nominees in red districts?

We decided to commission a study to answer that question.

To determine the impact of having a funded Democratic nominee on the ballot, we engaged a team from Washington University. The team looked at Missouri, where we ran our pilot state-based project funding down-ballot Democratic nominees for state legislature.

Here’s what we found:

Having a Nominee Improves Vote Share for the Top-of-the-Ticket by 1.5%

Having a Democratic nominee matters. Looking at the 2020 election, simply having a nominee on the ballot increased vote share for the top of the ticket (President Joe Biden) by 1.5%. Those results were almost identical to a study done in 2017 by the Analyst Institute in Virginia, and another done by Run for Something in 2020.

Funding impacts both vote share and turnout.

Funding made a difference, too – for every $10k the nominee raised, they increased vote share for the top of the ticket by 0.25%. And in 2013, a professor at LSU did a review of 20 states and found that funding a state legislative challenger at $0.36 per eligible voter increased turnout by 1%. Source: R. Hogan, Campaign Spending and Voter Participation in State Legislative Elections, Soc. Sci. Quarterly (Sep. 2013).

Every State Blue projects have huge potential to “move the needle” both statewide and nationally

Our study results show that, taking both the 1.5% benefit of simply having a Democratic nominee on the ballot and the impact of funding on both turnout and vote share, we can expect up to a 2.5% increase in Democratic vote share for the top of the ticket in a district that goes from no nominee to a minimally funded nominee. (“Minimally funded” is defined as a nominee that receive sat least $0.36 per eligible voter.)

Now we wondered: with those vote share and turnout gains, what would be the real world statewide impact of running and funding nominees in every district?

We found that the benefit to the top of the ticket from running funded nominees in every district is dramatic enough to swing statewide and national outcomes.

Had an Every State Blue project been implemented in 2016 in Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton would have been elected president in 2016.

If an Every State Blue project had been in place in 2020 in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, President Biden would have had a substantially greater margin in each of those states in 2020, making the “Big Lie” even less credible.

We already know that in 2024, we will need to overcome voter suppression and outlandish objections. Increasing the Democratic nominee’s margins by as much as possible in swing states will be important.

The benefits of running funding nominees in every district are clear. The real world impact of doing so is also clear.

The question isn’t whether Democrats should fund every state legislative nominee – but how we do so in the most efficient and sustainable way. We have developed the program that answers that question.

Our Solution: Unique Funding Model + Grassroots Power + Long-Term Commitment

The solution we propose is simple: grassroots communities of monthly donors who, acting together, crowdfund for underfunded Democratic nominees for state legislature – especially in red districts.

Based on our research, we know that it’s important to ensure every Democratic nominee has a minimal amount of funding. But in ultra-gerrymandered red states, it’s hard to find someone to run in red districts – let alone get them funding.

For example, in 2020, before our Blue Ohio project launched in 2022, 13 Democratic nominees for Ohio state legislature had less than $5,000 to run their entire campaign. In Missouri, eight nominees had less than $1,000. Last cycle in Tennessee, one quarter of the Democratic nominees had less than $5,000.

The same story repeats itself in (red) state after (red) state.

That’s the gap that we need to fill. And it’s why – unlike any other organization we’re aware of – we distribute funds first to those nominees who have the least. That way, we lift everyone up and create a funding floor below which no nominee will go.

And do you know what?

It’s working.

This year, our grassroots Blue Ohio community has already raised and distributed over $285,000 to a whopping 56 Democratic nominees – creating a funding floor of $7,386.44.

Individually, that support makes a huge difference. Nominees have told us they’re using the funds for yard signs, literature, postcards and gas money. By giving them resources, we’re making it easier for them to turn out voters and push back against the Ohio GOP’s extreme agenda.

But consider the collective impact:

Before Blue Ohio’s support, those 56 nominees – who are running against some of the Ohio GOP’s most extreme legislators – had collectively raised $128,628.

Now they have $413,640.

That was all made possible because of Blue Ohio – an incredible, supportive, evergreen community of monthly grassroots donors. (You can join that community here). As an evergreen community, we have become the perpetual power source for state legislative races in Ohio.

With state projects in Ohio, Missouri and Tennessee, and our national Forgotten Democrats program supporting underfunded Congressional nominees, we are lifting up entire states and making sure that Republican extremists – even in some of the reddest, most gerrymandered districts in the country – aren’t getting a free pass.

We’ve proven the power of the downballot – and the power of the grassroots.

You can be part of the change by supporting our work here – or by joining one of our communities. We’ll be so proud to have you.

Join Blue Ohio

Join Blue Missouri

Join Blue Tennessee

Join Forgotten Democrats

For too long, Democratic races at the state and federal level all over the country have gone unchallenged – or unsupported.

We're changing that.

With projects in three states (Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee) and nationally (Forgotten Democrats) Every State Blue is committed to creating grassroots communities of people like you who want Democrats to fight everywhere.

We have a simple strategy: show up.

When we don’t run and support Democrats, the people living in those districts feel abandoned, ignored… forgotten. Meanwhile, GOP nominees get free passes.

Every State Blue knows there’s a better way. Working together, we can show up, make sure no Democrat is left behind … no voter is left without a choice … and no Republican gets a free ride.

Our Every State Blue communities welcome thousands of people like you who understand that we need to fight in every corner of the country.

We can, if we work together.

No more unsupported races. No more forgotten voters.

No more free passes for the GOP.

If you’re on board with that message, you’ve found the right place. Here’s where we hope to tell the story of what we’re doing, who we’re helping, and – most importantly – the community we’re building along the way.

We sure hope you’ll join us.

Let’s go.

https://everystateblue.org/

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