My name is Ashwani Jain, and I am a Democrat running for Congress to represent Maryland’s 6th Congressional District which includes Northern Montgomery County as well as Frederick, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett Counties.

While I would be the first Millennial and first Asian-American ever elected to represent Maryland in Congress, I am specifically running because I have comprehensive policy solutions that will open the doors of opportunity for our community.

This is an open seat with no incumbent, and Maryland's Primary election is on the 14th of May.

My top policy priorities include:

• Removing the influence of corporate money in politics and campaigning.
• Making public college free as an investment in our future.
• Establishing a system of Medicare for All which includes protected access to reproductive health.
• Increasing the minimum wage to $26 by 2030 to account for inflation and cost of living.

Please feel free to ask any questions regarding my platform, the Congressional election, my experience campaigning, or anything else!

You can find out more at JainForCongress.com or at my Subreddit r/JainForCongress!

I bought a domain through GoDaddy, however I'm not a fan of the templates they have for their campaigns. Are there any specific softwares people recommend?

Hi All -

I hope this is OK that I post this -- I figured the people who are part of this community would find it helpful.

https://www.operative-wisdom.com

I started this blog for basically two reasons:

1. I like to write, and I wanted to do more of it.

2. I think there is a lot about politics and campaigns that people don't know about but wish they did.

I remember when I first started working in politics more than a decade ago. I had done well in my Political Science classes. I had read every book I could get my hands on about campaigns of all sizes. I thought I already knew everything there was to know about politics and elections!

And then when I started actually working on campaigns, it became evident how little I actually knew. And as I worked on more and more campaigns over the years, it was clear that there weren't a lot of resources out there dedicated to how campaigns actually work, especially at the local level – the level that the tens of thousands of elected officials throughout the country operate at.

And so the goal of Operative Wisdom is to share a perspective that potentially hasn't been shared before.

An alternate title for this blog could have been: "Stuff I actually wished I learned in my political science classes."

I hope these writings have a little of something for everyone. If you're a first-time candidate, I really hope you learn something. Or if you're just an outside observer interested in politics. Or if you're someone who one day wants to work in politics. Or if you're an organization hoping to grow your political influence. Or if you're just an annoyed voter who wonders why you keep getting buried in direct mail every other November.

I am looking to talk to people about unique campaign ideas. For a serious attempt to win a United States Senate seat in 2024. I want to see just how far outside the box a campaign can run. Think Vermin Supreme without the hat boot or actually even getting closer to Waldo from Black Mirror without most of the obscenities. If that's not hard enough I want to embrace limited fundraising, Citizen driven communication, an interactive and responsive form of governance and accountability inching us closer to a direct democracy with 90%+ plus voter engagement as a goal.

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Heres the thought,

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Senators are statewide federal offices. Therefore, a senator elected should have a goal to be the best conduit for the most voices. You will never get 100% on board but there is a wide range of issues in which we do agree on.

Tools to help you peruse that statement, mainly repositories of claims with links.

50 surprising things Americans actually agree on

Americans Actually Agree on Far More than We Disagree

'Will of the People’ vs. congressional actions

National Survey Finds Bipartisan Support for Expansive View of Rights

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First by focusing on those issues and getting people more engaged and making them feel like they have a more measurable impact on their government will turn politics into a garden instead of a sports game. It shouldn't be team Blue vs team Red it should be the present working to keep the game going and make it as good as possible for as many as we can because we are all a part of team human of planet earth and none of us alive today are responsible for what past created our present but we are responsible for rejecting dangerous and hateful ideologies from the past.

I can be that conduit. I have been a walking contradiction my whole life who has battled depression and who has ADHD but I care deeply about the future of all life on this planet, especially my own. I am just as selfish as a lot of people in the fact that I just want to find my purpose and fit in. Oddly that place is in public office. Not only do I find the proximity to power exhilarating I find empathy to make sure that we all can have a say in our society because I am no more important than any one else on this planet. How does one keep that excitement in check? Well the representative needs to understand they are just a conduit and then they are supposed to use their best judgment using the knowledge they have of their constituents.

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So whenever there is a vote in congress that question will be asked to the constituents. If 10 percent of the voting population voted for 80% in one direction then that is certainly an opinion on the vote but that's also 90% saying we dont care/not interested/dont like either voting choices. Thats an opinion. Well as the representative if I only truly know 10% of my constituents' voices I am left to interpret a lot based on who I am and what I personally care about.

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Now if 75% of my district voted and it was 80% in favor one way or the other then that is a fairly large sample size and I am left with less leeway. If I dont agree I should hold conversations and explain and if there is no understanding I should vote with how my people want me to vote. That is the deal we all signed up for by participating in a representative democracy.

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Instead of focusing in the issues that divide us I want to find the ones we agree on and then sign a new social contract with my constituents to be held accountable. Then when it comes time to review my performance it can be simple. See where all the issues were but also the flash issues and hot button topics that we see a swell of importance and track how well I vote with my people. Then set that standard across the country.

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Gerrymandering for example. That is an issue most people will agree is a bad thing. The dude who gerrymandered his district lost his reelection. If you need that to win then that is cheating. Democracy should be about the best ideas rising to the top instead we have a government that is concerned with self preservation and interest because they have outside influences (Lobbyist and multinational corporations) funding them and influencing our elected leaders.

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We dont have common folk running for office and I want to change that. Or at least try and its going to take a highly unique campaign. Its going to be one based on having those intimate conversations with their families and really a campaign that the voice is that of the people and the conversation of me as a candidate surrounds the philosophy of the campaign and the spirit of putting power back into the people. Additionally, like many people getting my is harder than it needs to be and so that's where the waldo idea comes into play. My representation of the people can take on sort of an avatar so I can be in more places at once plus it would make it far easier for name recognition. I have a number of ideas of how to visualize that. Perhaps the avatar changes the transparency o the image. if only 20% of the people responded to an issue then it is only 20% visual or something like that.

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Ultimately my longer-term goals are to upgrade democracy to the 21st century making it more proactive to issues instead of always reacting and I want more people to feel that we the people actually have the power.

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I have given a lot more publically than I initially anticipated as I would prefer to have private conversations because this idea makes me quite nervous but I feel there we can somehow harness the good that is on the internet and take control of our society through using our collective voice.

Hi All,

I'm running for my local school board and I'm looking for ways to get my name out there as much as possible. I don't have a lot of donations (yet) so I'm looking at just putting in the hard work to meet with people.

One idea I had was to send personal emails to parents that are part of the PTO at all of the schools in the district. I can usually find the email addresses from the PTO website (of the president, VP, secretary, etc.)

My question is - would this backfire? I don't want to come off as aggressive or annoying to the parents, so I am hoping a personalized email introducing myself would help.

Besides door knocking - any other ideas on how to get my name out there?

Appreciate the help!

Background: I am a career political operative (15+ years, with 10+ as a campaign manager) who has managed numerous winning campaigns from city commission to U.S. Senate. I’ve managed tens of millions in political money, and want to share the lessons I’ve learned with others.

Question: I’ve been working on a book/guide for running for office, and wanted to get some feedback and thoughts on what I may be missing in the work.

I’d be happy to share the version once it’s edited for free with anyone in this community, but I want to start with the idea that I am addressing the questions potential candidates and staffers actually have. I’ve never run a campaign that raised less than $100k, so there’s obviously some bias in my experience.

I want the guide to be accessible to folks running for school board to state legislative seats - where I feel that national/state campaign committees and apparatuses fall short and experienced staff are too expensive.

I’ve structured my guide with the following ideas:

1. Candidate focused: Why you run and what you will do when elected
2. How you win a campaign. Essentially the essence of a campaign. I try to tackle some misconceptions on campaigns here (people too often look at presidential races and TV/movies for the guide to running a state leg campaign, IMO - it’s not even close to reality). I try to get to what resonates and moves voters (to switch or just to turn out) without a policy bias. This is NOT a book designed for a particular ideology, it’s meant to be applicable to anyone.
3. Strategy. This is messaging, tactics (phones, doors, paid comms). To this point, it’s really about how to frame the question of the campaign and align your campaign to the question. (Not change who you are, but change what you focus on to win)
4. Fundraising and budget (how to Rolodex, how to raise money large and small, how to craft a campaign budget, what should be prioritized based on campaign fundraising levels, what are BS expenditures that waste money (i.e. BILLBOARDS), etc.)
5. Tactics: I want to give a primer on what the advantages and disadvantages are on the major tactical decisions for campaigns. By that I mean polling, mail, TV, radio, phones, text message campaigns, door knocking, opposition research (what it is and isn’t), etc. I’m not looking to advocate for any particular tactic, but I have seen too many campaigns get over charged for any of those and then underperform because they wasted the money on a thing they saw in House of Cards or something. I very much want to communicate here when, how, and why to hire campaign consultants and expected costs.
6. Candidate specific information. What it is like to be a candidate. What the expectations for a candidate are. What they need to do to win. What may come out. Etc.
7. Campaign manager specific info. How to manage a candidate. How to manage a kitchen cabinet. How to craft and maintain a campaign plan and budget. What the responsibilities are and are not to the campaign.

That’s the rough purpose and intent, but I wanted to get thoughts from this community on what would be useful, what should I skip, what should I delve deeper on.

I’ve been working on this for a while, but I know that I come at it from a perspective that is in the process and my candidates tend to be less apprehensive about running and my goal is to help those who are apprehensive about running and to help mostly volunteer campaign staff (that manager of a city council race for her sister-in-law level). Additionally, I want this to be shorter. I don’t want to go to far into the weeds. I don’t want to write the “Physicians Desk Reference” for campaigns. I want to outline the basics so that potential candidates and staff can understand what they’re signing up for. EG: The oppo section will probably be: does you opponent have a criminal history of fraud, violence or such, if not move on; also do you have a history of fraud, violence or such, if so, don’t run… it will come out and embarrass you and your family.

For all you who have run for office, who are in office, or have managed/staffed a campaign: the favor I ask of you is what do you wish you knew before you did that?

If you have any other thoughts, that too would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Howdy, all,

It's been a while and I have a few minutes to make this post. Hopefully, you can learn from me.

I will preface by saying that I would have been the youngest elected to the office in the history of our state.

I raised nearly $20,000 and won just under 2,000 votes.

I came third with 15.5 % of the vote Second place won 17% of the vote. The winner of the election took 68% of the vote

Spending:

My campaign spent $20,000 on mailers,robocalls,texts 2nd place spent around $15,000 on robocalls and yard signs 1st place spent $70,000 on various expenditures, mailers, ads, rallies and meet & greets.

Environment:

My county has a huge presence of churches throughout the community, church membership is a huge aspect of our community. I'm a bit of an odd 1s out because my church affiliation is to a church outside the district and not the same denomination as the main presence.

There was an EXTREMELY competitive sheriff's race in our county this cycle(to the likes I have never seen before) this matters to the whole picture once all said and done.

Republican primary turnout was up 150% from the 2018 midterms, this is par for the course considering the party that holds the presidency generally faces more fervor against than for regardless of approval.

The candidates:

I was 22 years old, a fmr. College Republican Chair, and used to knock doors for the NRA. I was also only 6 months back from college. I had a 40 hour a week day job, and didn't have the same personal resources and volunteer network that would be necessary to win.

2nd place: Was rt. Law Enforcement and all around a more Libertarian Republican than the other two. I've had the honor of meeting with him since, my vote number was so close to his I evidently earned his respect and we hope to work together in the future.

The Winner: A wealthy pastor who has been a mega church pastor for the last 10 years. By his own admission around a month before it became public, he received a heads-up from the incumbent about the coming retirement. He levied his connection with an organization meant to elect pastors across the country to secure the Lt. governors endorsement, a lt. Governor who happens to be quote popular among Republican primary voters.

The campaigns shaped out like this:

The pastor's fundraising/volunteer base of establishment Republicans and church membership gave him a huge edge early.

Both the pastor and 2nd place used a large amount of yard signs across the district. The pastor paid for billboards.

I knew that I did not have the money to do yardsigns so I chose to use extremely targeted information on people I knew would vote in the primary. I had a total of 45 yard signs across a very large district to at least 1,000 yard signs each from the 2 other campaigns. The 2nd place candidate in fact did the yard signs and a single robocall and that is it.

Me and the pastor's campaign Both chose mailers as our biggest mass communication. His campaign sent 20,000 households 2 mailers. My campaign again choosing to do more targeted sent 7,000 households 7 mailers.

I supplemented with targeted calls and texts which actually did fairly well.

The next thing worth mentioning on its own section is the "Prayer meetings" me and the 2nd place candidate received invitations from different people close to our opponents campaigns inviting us to churches to have a "prayer over the election" I chose to not attend, the pastor spoke at all but one of these events the only one to my knowledge where he didn't was when the law enforcement officer chose to attend. One church then released the list of attending politicians so we know who "supports Christian values" early vote numbers suggest that there were key activists within these churches who ensured turnout.

Come early voting and election day and the pastor was the only one with enough volunteers(helps if you have a whole church of followers) who worked the polls. On election day thought the message changed and I overheard these volunteers telling voters he was "the only Choice for Christians" I had someone I knew ask them if the other candidates were, and the answer was "to my knowledge no". Of all the political attacks I expected to face, my belief in God was not something I expected.

Turnout in our specific race was much higher than elsewhere. As close as we can tell there are at least 3-4,000 unlikely voters that turned out for the church push.

The sheriffs race also upped the turnout and we had a ton of voters show up only to vote for sheriff.

My ballot position was third and the pastor was the top meaning it's very unlikely any one just checking a random box would hit mine.

The conclusion: My campaign hoped for abysmal turnout in the midterms in order for my targeted campaign to beat my opponents I'm the 4/4 voters. The votes I needed to win in that scenario I would have won. In fact, I beat the win number of multiple candidates in similar elections across the state. For that I'm proud, but the high-turnout meant that many people voted only on the yardsigns and the broader mailer. Which led to me coming third.

The good news is that due to my lack of yard signs and ballot position, if someone voted for me, it's because they knew all three options and decided that I as a 22 year old kid would be a better politician than men more than twice my age, and for that I'm humbled and honored.

1 thing I know now that I've had time to think on it:

My resolve is stronger than ever.

Hi all,

You may have noticed somewhat fewer posts from spam bots recently. That's because I've been working to clean them up by removing them and by banning the worst offenders. Hopefully, this forum will return to its primary purpose of discussing what it's like to run for office, especially as a novice.

With that said, and primary season upon us once more, we'd like to hear your stories. Did you run for office this year? Did you have an interesting experience volunteering for, or working for a campaign? Do you have questions as to what either of those is like?

Thank you in advance for your contributions, and good luck at the ballot box.

 Hi to friends and allies all across. My name is Sam Cao and I am running as a Democratic candidate for the Ohio State Representative, on the behalf of District 56 (which was District 54 before Ohio’s recent redistricting). I am running to represent your choice and your voice in Columbus. We will be needing all the help that we can get. I ask for your vote and generous donation; every thing counts! I strongly believe that the state legislature should represent the voices of the younger generations as we have been alienated for too long. Grow up in a family of two immigrant parents, I share your dislike for unnecessary divisiveness. Hence, I’m a big advocate for commonalities rather than differences; sisterhood and brotherhood rather than animosity.  My platform is here to promote compassion, love and unity. And I know that message will outlive this race.

Our website is https://samcaoohio.com/

Consider donating: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/friends-of-sam-cao?refercode=website

Thanks all. x

A new grassroots org, Catch Fire Movement, is looking for progressives who are running/thinking about running for a local seat in 2023 or 2024 to join their free candidate development program!

Their program focuses on providing practical tools, resources, and training needed to run a successful campaign and balance the rigorous journey of running for office with their personal well being.

Check it out and share with ppl who might be interested: https://www.catchfiremovement.org/programs/blaze-the-trail/

Hello folks, does anyone know for sure if Google has banned ALL political advertising, or just on display/video? I'm looking at this: https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6014595?hl=en#zippy=%2Ccanada%2Celection-ads-in-canada but it doesn't explicitly call out search ads, so I'm not sure what the extent of it is.

Other platforms have clearly said no political ads at all in Canada or no political ads globally.

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to get a sense of what are the current major/rising campaign software platforms similar to NationBuilder or NGP VAN. Essentially, I'm looking for an update to this older post: https://old.reddit.com/r/RunForIt/comments/ncier/resource_political_campaign_software/

If it's campaign financing software or an integration for such, I'd be looking for something that applies specifically to Ontario, Canada.

Thanks!

Hello everyone! I would like to eventually run for local office and go from there. I’m a junior in college and have interned/worked with different campaigns and in my state capital but it’s never really led to anything. Sometimes I've barely even got to meet the candidates. I'm getting tired of feeling like I'm not getting anywhere in the political space as a young person. Any tips on getting my foot in the door? How I would go about running with party backing in a few years? What happens if the role I want to run for has been occupied forever?

Welp after an abruptly announced retirement in my district and a lot of behind the scenes talks and searches I'm running for the State House of Representatives.

My biggest challenge will be name recognition but due to my past work and connections I will be launching with a significant endorsement and maybe more to follow. My skills as a graphic designer Also allow me to present ad better funded than I am so a fast moving quickly launched campaign is imperative to shut down other committee's momentum.

I also have 2-5k donations lined up(assuming 2)

I will document as much as I can w/o doxing myself and I hope in about 6 months time I can report a primary victory that will lead to a statistically guaranteed general election win.

I'm running for the state senate under the democratic party and I need to put another person on the committee because state requirement (no actual work required unless you want to).

Hi everyone! I'm 39 years old and recently moved to a politically purple district in Washington state. I'm interested in running for local office as an openly socialist candidate. My main inspiration was seeing the local voter's pamphlet, and noticing just how boring and cliché most of the campaign statements sounded. The local elections would be so much more exciting if we had some socialists on the ballot talking about workers' power and economic democracy.

The question is....how do I overcome the cultural taboo associated with the "S" word and convince voters that I'm a compelling candidate for the job?

As a 25 year old graduate of UCLA with a degrees in Political science and Sociology, I've long fantasized about running for public office. Currently I live in Los Angeles, but for many reasons, I don't feel this state has the best political opportunities for someone like me. I'd probaly move to a more independent or even conservative state before running for office, not because I'm particularly conservative, but because that's where I feel that progressivism would have the greatest/most positive effect.

I consider myself a progressive leftist and many of my views are generally considered pretty radical or extremist by the mainstream Democratic establishment. However, I find myself strongly identifying with a few positions that most liberals/democrats would consider to be strictly right-wing like a more lenient attitude towards gun control, more encompassing protections for free speech, and strong disapproval of government wastefulness, incompetence, and corruption.

Despite this, I feel for the most part that there are generally policy solutions that can satisfy progressive voters and conservatives/independents simultaneously. I'm not talking about taking a "middle-ground moderate" approach, but radically progressive policies aimed at environmental action, criminal justice reform, wealth redistribution, healthcare, and empowering the middle class that appeal to conservatives/independents by adapting the semantic marketing/branding of the issues/solutions and concurrently associating them with this archetypal, independent, populist, outsider candidate (me) who happens to also be strongly supportive of a few more traditional conservative culture-war priorities and rhetoric like guns, free speech, patriotism, religious freedom, small business, tax cuts, anti-communist authoritarianism and identity politics, etc. Whatever, as long as you frame it right.

Essentially, you run as an Independent with a socially and environmentally progressive platform which you brand as more of a "pro-American, pro-middle-class, anti-government-corruption-and-corporate-elitist populism", while making a few major right-wing concessions like loosening gun control, denouncing a couple corporate Democrats, and railing against Big Tech-censorship. Just throw in a couple of widely popular bipartisan policies (cryptocurrency support, governmental accountability for waste and corruption, tax cuts for the middle-class, abolishing electoral college, anti-war, etc) and you'd be quite the controversial figure which, in politics of today, seems to be an asset.

Personally, I'd consider doing this for two reasons: firstly, my ideological stances on many of these issues really do break from the mainstream neo-liberal corporate Democrat establishment platform in some pretty significant ways.

Secondly, I strongly believe that the imperative of bringing the American-working-class-conservatives onboard with combatting climate change and wealth inequality far outweighs any of the other more minor ideological differences that leftists and conservatives might harbor, however hurtful the rhetoric may be. Right now, as I see it, the partisan division/gridlock that currently plagues our country is more directly the result of decades of corporate-propaganda-programming through the mainstream media (and the resulting bipartisan miscommunication/misunderstanding it fosters) than truly diametrically opposed core principles/value-systems among working-class Americans.

So, moving the country in an overall more progressive direction, is really just a matter of rebranding the central issues in a way that are palatable to both sides. Obviously, avoid identifying with the easily attackable partisan trigger words like socialism, democrat, republican, raising taxes, gun control, etc.. and instead, pusue the appropriate progressive policy solutions, but promote new terms like ethical-capitalism, capitalist-reformationism, independent, policy-based-not-partisan-based, strengthening/improving constitutional protections, etc. What do you think?

Would this broadly appeal to voters across the aisle of would it be more likely to get you rejected by both sides. I think a lot of voters don't think too critically about policy proposals and rely more on party-messaging/loyalty to decide on a candidate, so running as an independent in an overwhelmingly Republican/Democrat-leaning area may backfire, but running in a region that prides itself on it's independence/libertarianism could work.

Theoretically of course. In my town/state only conservatives get elected. Sooo could a person run as conservative but switch and vote for leftish policies etc once they are elected? I’m bot running, just curious if this happens. Thanks

Please forgive my naivety on the topic - I am aspiring to learn more about the political machine and get more involved locally.

One question I had is, for someone who wants to run for office, how do they determine if they should run at the state/local level (e.g. board of supervisors, delegate, state senator) vs federal (US congress, senate, etc)?

I know it takes a lot more money to run for the House of Reps or Senate than it would for local legislature, just wanted to round that out with more objective (or even subjective) reasoning. Thanks.

If you are going to run for office, here's a list of organizations that offer online training for candidates. Has anyone been through any of these programs?

List of Political Training Programs

It's daunting, but it's so important that normal Americans run for office, whether it's for Congress or school board. I honestly think every person should run for something at some point.

What questions do you have about running?

Found this, it has some basics of getting setup to run for a federal office position. Does anyone have experience that can validate this? Zero Star, LLC - How to Run for Federal Office