A small group of politically active students at Kent State University plans to knock on thousands of dorm room doors with a message: Don’t vote for State Rep. Heidi Workman.
The Republican from Rootstown – and Kent State alum – is running for reelection to the seat she won in 2024. Her House District 72 covers much of Portage County, including the university’s main campus in Kent.
The group is targeting Workman for her support of Senate Bill 1. The law, which took effect in 2025, overhauled how Ohio’s public colleges and universities operate, including by ending diversity, equity and inclusion (or DEI) work and introducing a host of new rules institutions must follow.
Republican lawmakers said the legislation was needed to combat what they saw as a too-liberal culture across the state’s campuses. Workman said she was “incredibly proud” to back it in a March 2025 press release. Her campaign didn’t respond to Signal Statewide’s request for comment for this story.
Senate Bill 1 passed easily last year despite public opposition from many college students and faculty members across the state.
That anger lingers for some, including Nica Delgado, a 2025 Kent State alum and digital organizer with the left-leaning Ohio Student Association. This fall, they’re working with the group’s political arm, which leads campaign-related work, including these Kent State efforts.
Delgado said the anti-SB1 sentiment is the root of the campaign against Workman, adding that it’s a way to tell politicians that “college students are not a demographic they should disregard or ignore when it comes to politics.”
“If you do not have students’ best interests in mind, you will not have a job,” they said.
Kent State students plan to knock on doors at 24 residence halls
Delgado said the bulk of the Kent State students’ work is set to happen on Oct. 23.
That’s when the group plans to knock on every door of the nearly 6,000 students living in one of 24 residence halls across the university’s main campus this fall, along with some nearby off-campus apartments.
About 20 to 30 members are part of the university’s chapter of the Ohio Student Association. That’s a tiny slice of the more than 24,300 students currently enrolled at the Kent campus.
To cover more ground, Delgado said the group hopes to host at least an additional 100 students from several of the organization’s other chapters across Ohio for the event. They said outside guests are allowed to participate as long as they’re paired with a Kent State student living in that dorm.
Delgado said the students are preparing to have two conversations. One is geared towards their peers who are registered to vote but may feel apathetic about it. The other is targeted for those who do want to vote but aren’t sure who they plan to support.
Young voters historically turn out at lower rates, though Gen-Z voters did cast more ballots in the 2022 election than Gen Xers and millennials did in their first midterm elections.
Both conversations will center on highlighting Workman’s link to Senate Bill 1 and what student activists believe got lost when it took effect, according to Delgado.
They said the law “destroyed” Kent State, pointing to the closure of campus centers serving multicultural, female and LBGTQ+ students. University officials said they made those moves to comply with the law.
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How House District 72 has voted in recent years
The Kent State students also plan to make a case for why they believe their peers should instead vote for Workman’s Democratic opponent Jeff Clapper, current president of Kent City Council. Libertarian Michael Fricke is also running.
The group may face an uphill climb in their attempt to flip Workman’s seat.
While voting patterns show the Kent-area seat was more competitive between Democrats and Republicans in earlier elections, it has leaned right in recent years. Workman earned nearly 60% of the vote in 2024. She succeeded (after beating in a testy primary race) fellow Republican Gail Pavliga, who had held that seat for the previous two terms.
Still, Delgado believes the campaigning Kent State students are doing around the race will result in Clapper “winning in a landslide.”
“I think that this seat is 100% within our reach,” they said.
