The Downballot Diaries: Is This Bus Heading to Democracy?
What Real Support Means to Real Candidates
It’s not every day that you find out a nominee you supported used the funds for a blue school bus.
I remember the first time I talked to Laura Schaeffer, Democratic nominee for Ohio State House District 59. It was after dinner on a beautiful spring night, and she was in the backyard catching frogs with her kids when I called to let her know that our Blue Ohio community would be sending her funding.
It was a sizable, meaningful check – $6,024.81.
As happens with most of the nominees that I call to tell them we’ll be sending them funding, there was a shocked silence. A sharp intake of breath. A burst of laughter. A lightness that you can feel over the phone and across hundreds of miles.
All of Every State Blue’s projects crowdfund for underfunded nominees – which are usually the folks running in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts. It’s hard to find someone to run in those places, let alone get them the funding they need to be effective.
So hearing they’re going to get any help is surprising.
Hearing they’re getting meaningful support shifts their mindset.
Laura’s district is outside Youngstown. Part of it borders Pennsylvania. Part of it wraps around the district just south of it which includes East Palestine where a freight train full of hazardous materials derailed in 2023. It’s within Ohio’s 6th Congressional District – a district that Biden lost by 29 points in 2020 but that made headlines earlier this year when an underfunded Democratic nominee named Michael Kripchak came within 10 points of winning the seat in a special election.
That’s a 20 point swing.
I called Laura yesterday to catch up, and because I had heard that she described the support she had gotten from Blue Ohio as being profound, and that she had used part of her Blue Ohio support for … a bus.
She explained that, yes, she has a bus. And it goes everywhere with her.
With the funds from Blue Ohio, Laura repainted an old school bus a beautiful dark shade of blue. On both sides, in bright white all-caps lettering that spans the whole mid-length of the bus, she added VOTE LAURA SCHAEFFER, STATE REPRESENTATIVE. To save costs, she did all of the sanding and painting herself.
Image Credit, @lauraforohio on Facebook
She drives that bus all over the district, every day. She drives it to and from work, parking it strategically at places where she knows it will be seen and get attention. She canvasses every day on her way home from her work at the library, and parks the bus in a very visible part of whatever neighborhood she’s visiting so that people will see her name and know she’s in the area. She drives it around the fair. She parks it at friends’ local businesses. She drives it down busy roads.
“So it’s sortof like Where’s Waldo, except with a bus,” I joked.
She laughed.
But then she got serious about how much the support from our grassroots Blue Ohio community had meant.
She confirmed that she had indeed described that support as profound. And she explained why.
Because that support came right after the primary, she was able to get campaign materials like business cards and palm cards that candidates need right away. That meant she had something to take with her when going to events – so folks would remember her name – and could start canvassing early. For her door-knocking program she created “care packages” – baggies neatly packed with post-its and palm cards.
Blue Ohio’s early support made her early work possible. She could hit the ground running, without having to scrabble.
And that early support also meant that when other potential donors asked her how much she had raised and what her operation looked like, she had great answers to both questions – which helped bring in even more support. Her Blue Ohio funding gave her the ability to start putting together a professional, creative campaign that’s now (literally) bringing the race to every corner of the district.
An upstart grassroots community – made up of regular folks like you and me who believe in the power of running everywhere – gave her the gas that she needed to really take off.
She’s right to describe that as profound.
It’s probably not surprising that when she strikes up a conversation with folks at the doors, she often hears that they know who she is – because they’ve seen her bus.
When I asked her who she’s running against, she laughed and said that’s the question she gets most often. As has become typical for Republicans in these gerrymandered districts that they take for granted, he’s done very little to show up for the people of his community. He takes winning that district as a foregone conclusion.
But it’s starting to look like Republicans in the district aren’t so confident.
Laura recently saw a Republican comment on Facebook that asked, with a distinct tone of desperation:
“Hey, who’s running in 59? We need to get some flyers out!"
Run everywhere, friends.
Run everywhere.
Every State Blue’s projects crowdfund support for underfunded Democratic nominees – who are typically running in the reddest and most gerrymandered districts. With state projects in Ohio, Missouri, and Tennessee, we’re redefining what it means for Democrats to run everywhere.
In the 2024 cycle, our Blue Ohio community (https://blueohio.org) has already raised and distributed $337,882.03 to 56 Democratic nominees for Ohio state legislature, making our grassroots community one of the largest donors in Ohio politics and creating a funding floor for nominees of $11,087.30. Our support has truly blanketed the state and empowered nominees like Laura. With one more disbursement coming at the end of September, we’re hoping to break $350,000 raised and distributed this cycle.
We also meet virtually every month, hearing from great guest speakers (which usually include a few supported nominees) and building the kind of supportive, grassroots community that we believe is the future of the Democratic Party.
Join the Blue Ohio monthly giving community here or (or give one-time here).
Not interested in joining Blue Ohio but want to support the Every State Blue mission? You can do that here.
This is what fighting everywhere looks like, friends.
 | A guest post by
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Of course I want Laura to win. However, even if she doesn’t succeed but she gets more “blue” voters to vote the trickle-down effect is likely to be real and it can affect both the top of the ticket and the other down-ballot races. A good example - Sherrod Brown is at risk and he will be helped.
This story inspired me to start a monthly donation to Every State Blue, and to increase my support for a courageous young woman running against a MAGA a$$hat for a NM state house district. There’s very little chance she’ll win but it will give despondent Democrats in this district a reason to vote and that will benefit all Dem candidates on the ballot. Every race matters. Too many MAGAs running unopposed, even in New Mexico, a “blue” state.