Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Talking to voters, some questions come up repeatedly. Here is my attempt to answer some of these. Please, if you have any that aren’t answered here, drop me a line either by emailing Blaizen @ BlaizenBuckshotBloom.com or calling/texting me at (757) 839-7070.
Blaizen Buckshot Bloom is absolutely the name on my original birth certificate. My mother named me after two NASCAR drivers, Blaise Alexander and Buckshot Jones, and thought it was a perfectly fine, normal name. The illiterative Bloom comes from my Dad.
I will be 22 at the time I take office, making me the youngest Democrat ever elected to the House of Delegates. That would make me the first Democrat elected who experienced Covid lockdown from the standpoint of a public school student.
I have, however, been extremely active in local politics since the age of 14, meaning that I actually have more relevant political experience than many, if not most, candidates who run for this office.
I am running to represent HD89 because I’ve experienced the worst and the best of Chesapeake and Suffolk. I’ve successfully advocated since I was 14 for meaningful improvements in our lives, and I’ve come to what I believe is a deep understanding of how we can protect what is working and improve what is not.
I was a recent student in our underfunded public schools and understand not just the need to restore diminished funding but also what, specifically, we need those dollars for. We need more teachers, teachers assistants, social workers, and school psychologists to deal with our real mental health crisis. We don’t need to use the term “mental health” as a smokescreen to ban books and bully queer/trans youth. We need to fix crumbling buildings and add classrooms, because no one can effectively learn in a school running at 160% capacity.
Like many in the working class, all of our R&R time growing up involved nature, because it’s the best R&R you can have for free. This put me on a path towards advocating for environmental justice in our dense neighborhoods as well as forming the bi-partisan Rural Chesapeake Preservation Committee. These advocacy projects, as well as my college education in environmental policy science, taught me the varied needs of our rural, urban, and suburban communities. I understand how to pursue a balanced growth that works for everyone. We can help aspiring farmers with apprenticeships and loan assistance, diversifying our farming community while allowing retiring farmers to sell their land for a competitive price while preserving the character of our independent farm region. We can do this while redeveloping areas like the Chesapeake Square Mall so that everyone benefits, developing mixed use and mixed income areas while guaranteeing current businesses and residents a right to return. I understand that Hampton Roads has a port that is uniquely central and deep, making us ideally positioned to become a global leader for wind turbine manufacturing with the right incentives.
Lastly, I am running because I’m tired of watching elected leaders in both parties drop the ball on how we communicate with voters and how we serve them. People are hurting, and people are stressed. I’m hurting and stressed. We need politicians who understand that economic stability is paramount to everything. We need to center this in how we talk, how we listen, and what we do. That’s been my approach as an activist, and I believe it’s what’s needed in Richmond.
My working-class background uniquely positions me to best represent and win in this district. I understand the struggles of working families, regardless of political affiliation. My father is a disabled navy veteran who experienced the worst of our underfunded VA but never gave up pushing for the care he deserved and needed. After a decade of battling that bureaucracy, a decade we’ll never get back, he finally got that care. I watched my mother survive a string of abusive relationships while trying to raise us on a single paycheck that was never enough. I didn’t discover I had Crohn’s Disease or Asthma until my late teens because I hid symptoms out of fear of creating medical bills my mother couldn’t afford. This background is the reason I can walk into even the most conservative spaces and win over staunchly GOP voters to my side, like I have election after election. Like my own conservative father, voters want an authentic voice representing them who will fight for what they believe to be right regardless of what might be “good politics.”
Furthermore, I’m a community organizer who knows what it takes to run campaigns with near impossible odds and still win successes for our community. In this second Trump administration, we need people who know what that’s like.
It’s an energy I bring to this fight that began when I grew up watching my parents struggle to make it through each week. An energy that empowered me to help kill the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a classic case of environmental injustice that could have incinerated Thurgood Marshall Elementary School with a single spark. That energy helped me win some REAL mental healthcare improvements for students when I took on a toxic school board culture that wanted to use “mental healthcare” as a smokescreen to ban books and bully queer/trans youth. I have a proven track record of winning results. That energy is what we need in our legislators right now if we want them to effectively fight for the big improvements we need in the face of the monumental forces aligned against us. We need people who understand that when forces try to intimidate and quiet you, the response is to get louder and more active, not patiently wait for a more opportune circumstance that may never come. I am that candidate.
My focus is creating economic security in our district by raising wages and lowering costs. I support raising the minimum wage to no less than $17/hr (indexed to inflation/productivity) and strengthening unions by repealing “right-to-work” laws to empower collective bargaining. Unions built the middle class, and we must restore their power to uplift workers.
I’ll push to replace the grocery tax with a luxury goods tax, to make essentials more affordable. We can address housing costs by streamlining permitting & incentivizing construction of starter homes to increase supply. We should pair this with restricting private equity long-term holding of housing, which manipulates the market and artificially spikes prices. Additionally, we must cap runaway prescription drug costs, particularly for insulin.
Reforming the flat business tax to a progressive one, starting at 0% for new businesses, will help small businesses and incentivize growth. We should establish a statewide fund, supported by large corporations, to help small businesses transition to necessary policies like a higher minimum wage and paid family/sick leave, enabling them to compete for talent and thrive while working Virginians get a slightly more humane work-life balance.
To keep our independent farms independent, I want to fund farm apprenticeship and loan assistance programs to help a new generation of aspiring farmers enter the field (sorry for the pun). That way, when a current farmer retires and sells their land, they have another option besides selling it to a developer or Monsanto.
We should invest in shovel-ready sites and school apprenticeship programs to position our region as an offshore wind industry hub, leveraging its central location and deep-port advantage. Partnering with the industry and offering incentives tied to guaranteed development will create sustainable, high-paying, union jobs.
Education/mental health, which are connected, are also high on my priority list. Being of the Covid generation, I witnessed the epidemics of mental illness and underfunding plaguing our schools. We vitally need to restore school funding to pre-recession (‘08) levels. We also need more mental health staff and a REAL K-12 mental wellness curriculum NOT banning books or bullying queer/trans youth.
Finally, as an environmental policy scientist who grew up low-income, I understand how our underserved communities bear the brunt of industrial pollution, have the least protections against climate change, and have the least access to natural beauty. I’m committed to making sure these communities get less pollution, less flooding, and more trees.
For more details, please visit the “Our Positive Vision” page on this website, which goes into my policies at length.
If I knock on your door and know your name, it’s most likely because you are registered to vote and I’m visiting registered voters. I may also know that you have voted regularly or in a Democratic primary. This information is public record. I do not know how you voted, which is confidential.
The best protection against the federal government is a state government that has our back, which is why this year’s VA elections are crucial. When a federal right like abortion access is abolished, we can enshrine that right in our state constitution. When the federal government slashes funding for education and healthcare, we can try to make up that funding deficit with state funds. If the feds want to seize people without due process and disappear them to El Salvador beyond US jurisdiction before a lawyer can establish mistaken identity, then VA law enforcement can withhold cooperation.
Most importantly, we must understand that attacks like we are facing require more than a legislative response. We need mutual-aid groups to be helping people survive until laws get passed to protect them. That means reproductive care funds that help people access care. That means food pantries. That means electing activists like myself who understand how to take on big fights from multiple angles.
I think contested primaries are good, because voters deserve a choice. I also think primaries make stronger candidates, because they give the nominee the mandate of the people and give candidates a chance to build momentum and sharpen their messages. This assumes the democrats in the primary don’t go negative against each other, which is always destructive and we are committed never to do.
I believe party leadership should stay neutral in primaries and then back whoever becomes the nominee. I think voters are tired of leadership playing primary favorites. This is why I made a pledge not to seek the primary endorsement of anyone currently sitting in Democratic leadership.
By listening and with a blended approach to persuasion and turn out. Every electorate is different, and you can’t serve it unless you approach every voter interaction by opening your ears before opening your mouth.
As for mixing persuasion with turn out, this isn’t just good politics, it’s the path to good governance. How can you serve everyone if you won’t even talk to everyone? I love turn-out conversations, because they keep me honest with respect to not taking our base for granted or not delivering on their needs. I love persuasion conversations because they break down partisan barriers and frequently involve challenging questions that genuinely sharpen my thinking.
“Right-to-Work” is a deceptively named anti-union policy which Virginia should repeal. It states that an employee in a union office or work-site does not have to pay dues to the union which negotiates on their behalf unless they choose to. When I was last in a union office, I actually accidentally went several months without paying dues because I forgot that I had to opt-in under “right-to-work.” This policy starves the union of the dues it needs to effectively advocate for better pay and working conditions.
“Balanced growth” is a conceptual framework that calls for starting your development strategy with an awareness that urban, suburban, and rural communities have different needs. For example, the Chesapeake Square Mall area needs active redevelopment toward a mixed-use, mixed-income future that brings current residents and businesses along for the ride. Our rural areas need a more preservation-first mindset. When looking at our port area, industrial and manufacturing policy should be centered. You can read more about this on the “Our Positive Vision” webpage.
Quite a lot. I believe small businesses are the engine or our economy and a vital glue in our community.
First, we should shift the flat business tax into a progressive tax, starting at 0% for new businesses. We should also establish a statewide fund, paid into by large corporations, that helps small businesses deal with some of the workers rights improvements I propose but acknowledge could be difficult for them. This fund would help small businesses deal with an increased minimum wage and mandatory paid family/sick leave. That way Virginians can have better jobs and small businesses can compete for talent with large corporations.
Our small, independent farmers have some specific needs of their own. I want to fund farm apprenticeship and loan assistance programs to help a new generation of aspiring farmers. That way, when a current farmer retires and sells their land, they have another option besides selling it to a developer or Monsanto.
An activist is someone who pushes for change outside the traditional halls of power. For example, by speaking publicly, educating voters, and moving public opinion as I did when organizing against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline or in favor of student rights and mental health care. Activists are the grassroots muscle of the progressive movement, and we need more of them in government. Activists know how to pivot and get things done in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. That’s what we do.
Of course I’m scared. I live in reality and see our government doing terrible things every day. But I also see positive signs we can build on.
I know that Americans who voted for a secure border didn’t actually want people rounded up without due process and sent to a gulag in El Salvador for the crime of speaking at a protest or having a tattoo. And I’ve seen (and polling shows) that, when we call out what is happening, a good number of those voters see that this really in not what they wanted.
I know that Americans who voted for lower inflation and more manufacturing weren’t asking for an inflationary trade war with the entire planet that will inevitably lead to harsher conditions at home and every major economy pivoting toward trade with China. And I know, both anecdotally and from the data, that Americans can see that this isn’t what they asked for.
So, yes, horrible things are happening. I’m not blind. But I also see that Americans aren’t blind, and they are increasingly aware of these repellant actions. That awareness, and the fire to resist in so many, is where I find my sliver of hope.
The truth is that we all agree much more than we disagree. We all want strong, prospering, sustainable communities. Alas, campaigns are not about where we agree, they are about where we don’t. My nod to the reality that our agreements outnumber our differences is to eschew personal attacks. Campaigns should be about drawing contrasts between what you and the other candidate intend to do, not about sleazy character smears.
We will not take donations from large corporations or their PACs, but we are fine with taking donations from small, local businesses and PACs that promote their interests.
If you visit the “Watch Me Talk” page on this website, you will find various video clips of me speaking or being interviewed. As for written press, there’s quite a lot you find by googling my name, but we’re also trying to keep up on articles by posting them on our social media pages.