Student Progressive Project

after the 2020 election, a number of student activists at oberlin college came together to discuss where the campaign to keep lorain county blue went wrong, and where the push to get oberlin’s campus activated failed. the main electoral organization on campus, the oberlin college democrats, was no longer finding the same success it had in previous years at creating an engaged student body, and for the first time in a long while, lorain county slipped out of its status as a democratic stronghold in northeast ohio. focusing on the most local aspects of the problem, the members of the oberlin college democrats decided a new approach to politics and organizing was needed — an approach that rejected the preexisting structures of the democratic party but took the best parts of it; an approach that was sustainable in light of an ever more left-leaning student body and the need for mass engagement. the student progressive project is what emerged. with a main focus on local and state policy,