The Party Does Not Get to Pick for Us
There are three people running the HD-19’s state house race. And I wanted to write about party endorsements and highlight the other two candidates. Cheryl Perez & Dionna Gore.
Party endorsements in a primary are not some harmless little process. They are a power move. They consolidate control inside the party. They create candidates who are loyal to the party structure. And then the party uses its own resources, along with the collective power of every other endorsed candidate, to give one person an unfair advantage before voters even get a real chance to look at the field.
That is what happens when the party sends out sample ballots to households and hands them out at the polls with only one name listed in a race where multiple people are running. That is not voter education. That is not neutral guidance. That is the party putting its thumb on the scale for a candidate picked behind closed doors by a few hundred people, then trying to decide the fate of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of Ohio voters.
This is exactly why I wanted to highlight Dionna Gore’s campaign and the criticism being thrown at her. Because what she did was not disgraceful. It was not deceitful. It was not some dirty trick. She understood the game being played, and she decided to fucking compete.
The Power of the Sample Ballot
The sample ballot matters. Everybody in politics knows it matters. People stick it on their fridge. They carry it with them to the polls. They use it as a guide when they vote. That is why the party uses it. That is why endorsed candidates want to be on it. That is why everyone is suddenly clutching their pearls when Dionna Gore made her own.
She put the candidates she supports on her sample ballot, and she put herself on it in the race where she is not the endorsed candidate. That is absolutely acceptable. Honestly, it is smart. It is one of the only ways a non-endorsed candidate can fight back against a party machine that already decided who it wants voters to choose.
But instead of admitting that, people tried to turn it into some scandal. They called it disgraceful. They called it a dirty trick. They acted like voters are too stupid to tell the difference between the official Democratic Party sample ballot and Dionna Gore’s campaign literature.
That is what pisses me off.
If you look at both ballots side by side, you can clearly tell the difference. One is branded with the Democratic Party. The other is Dionna Gore’s ballot. Different colors. Different logos. Yes, it has a similar structure because it is a sample ballot. It lists candidates who are going to be on the ballot. That is literally the fucking point.
People are not that stupid. They know what they are holding. If they are holding a ballot that says Dionna Gore, then they know they are looking at Dionna Gore’s campaign material. Acting like voters are helpless idiots who cannot read a logo or understand a campaign piece is not protecting democracy. It is insulting the constituents.
They Are Mad Because It Diminishes Their Power
The real problem is not confusion. The real problem is power.
People are not mad because voters might be tricked. They are mad because Dionna Gore’s sample ballot might actually work. It might diminish the effectiveness of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party’s sample ballot. And yes, that is the phrase people are throwing around like it is some moral indictment.
But let’s translate that for what it really means…
“We pick the candidates, not the voters. Do not interfere with our power.”
The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party wants to maintain control of the primary process. They want to squeeze out people who are actually running. They want to use endorsements, sample ballots, and insider relationships to narrow the field before voters get to make their own decision. Then when a candidate pushes back using the same basic tactic in a transparent way, suddenly that candidate is the problem.
Give me a break.
The hubris is unbelievable. The lack of self-reflection is almost impressive. To say you support democracy while being angry that a candidate made her own sample ballot is laughable. To act like the party’s preferred candidates deserve every institutional advantage, but a non-endorsed candidate is somehow dirty for trying to compete, is exactly the kind of insider bullshit people are sick of.
Trying to associate Dionna Gore’s tactic with MAGA, deceit, or something beneath a Democratic candidate is absurd.
What is deceitful is pretending the endorsement process is some pure democratic exercise when it is often a small room of insiders trying to shape the outcome before regular voters show up.
What is deceitful is pretending the party’s sample ballot is just a helpful tool, while everyone knows it is a weapon.
What is deceitful is acting like voters are being protected when what is really being protected is the power of the party machine.
And the fear tactic is obvious. They want to guilt people into believing that questioning the endorsed candidate is somehow disloyal. They want to make it seem like looking at non-endorsed candidates is reckless. They want people to believe there is one acceptable choice, and that choice just happens to be the one party insiders already picked for them.
That is not democracy. That is control.
Look at Every Candidate
I am writing this because people need to look closely at all the candidates, not just the endorsed ones. An endorsement does not mean someone is the best candidate. It means they won the endorsement. That is it. Those are not the same thing.
Vote based on your ideals. Vote based on the candidate. Vote based on who you think will actually represent you. Do not let party insiders tell you who the acceptable choice is, then guilt you, shame you, or scare you into falling in line.
And in Ohio 19, there are three candidates. Dionna Gore is one of them. Cheryl Perez is another non-endorsed candidate, and Perez really deserves a look too.
That should not be controversial. That should be the bare minimum.
You forgot about me. I'm the 4th candidate. I am a former Councilman and ran as a candidate in District 8 in 2012. Before I filed my petition, my club, Hillcrest Democratic Club had already rushed to endorse Nicole. Followed by the Ward Leaders. I was not invited by the county party for their endorsement meeting. Ironically, we call Trump, his MAGA supporters and Republican racists but this primary exposed racism in our party. My club, the ward leaders and the county party rushed to endorse a white candidate in seat that was held by Phil Robinson. Nicole was exposed as an anti-Semitic because she called for the destruction of Israel on her social media. Nobody from the party asked her to resign. Last year, a councilman in Mentor called a Blackman in an altercation the n word and everyone asked him to resign. In return, Phil who's black rushed to endorse Dionne! I had almost 80 signatures, but BOE disqualified most of them. 3 were rejected because they were Republicans. But the other candidate is being financed by a Republican PAC. Most of my signers were from nontraditional Americans. BOE never does outreach to nontraditional Americans and faults them for signing my petition.
It takes a lot of nerve for the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party to engage with endorsements at the primary level, something which they should never do. In a state that is overrun by MAGA goons and gerrymandering, they should be laser focused on getting maps that the voters have, in fact, voted for and should be enforceable. Instead, they cheapen the democratic process they pay lip service to defending by allowing voters no choice. Also, sample ballots cost money to generate and most of them end up in a landfill. It’s money that could be used in our broken system to defend small d democracy.