It's not often that political yard signs — a staple of local, state and national campaigns — are considered newsworthy.
Yard signs for political candidates appear on lawns around Columbus almost every year. This year, purple and orange signs were staked into the ground for supporters of Tiara Ross; painted black and white signs were out for Kate Curry-Da-Souza; and numerous signs for the 10 candidates for the Columbus City Schools Board of Education were put up.
It turns out each candidate for Columbus City Council District 7 — Ross, her lead rival Jesse Vogel and Kate Curry-Da-Souza — each took different approaches to the classic campaign tool in this year’s primary.
Ross and Vogel won Tuesday's primary, with Ross taking the most votes and Vogel close behind. Curry-Da-Souza came in third and will not advance to the general election.
Ross took the traditional approach. Her campaign paid $1,035 for yard signs before the primary, according to campaign finance reports.
Vogel did the exact opposite. His campaign didn't pay a dime for yard signs. That gamble paid off as he won nearly as many votes as Ross.
Vogel did pay more than $48,000 before the primary for other physical campaign media like mailers, stickers and hats.
Curry-Da-Souza possibly took the most unique approach, using a much smaller campaign funding haul. She told WOSU her yard signs were actually recycled.
"Those were all predatory signs that were placed in right-of-ways that we primed and painted with my logo. So those were all reused," Curry-Da-Souza said.
Curry-Da-Souza said these were signs placed illegally along street corners and on traffic islands that typically said things like "we buy houses for cash."
Curry-Da-Souza explained she took these signs, and repainted them with her logo. The signs appeared in the yards of her supporters in black and white or in white and blue.
Some other signs were just pieces of cardboard her team painted.
Curry-Da-Souza said despite losing, she is proud of the work her team put into this effort.
"You can run a campaign when people say that you can't run a serious campaign on very little funds. I think that that's just a lack of vision and creativity," Curry-Da-Souza said. "I think it's fully possible. I think we just need to have opportunities to rise above and to look for what's next and to progress."
Curry-Da-Souza paid $100 for yard sign stands and a little under $1,000 for general printing services for other campaign materials as of the last campaign finance reporting deadline.
Vogel told WOSU his campaign may change course ahead of November's general election.
"There's a lot of demand for yard signs. I suspect we may have yard signs by November, but I'm going to defer to the much smarter people on my campaign team who know how to win and follow their instructions," Vogel said.
Vogel and Ross are set to face off for the open District 7 seat on Nov. 4.
