“Josie Raymond only campaigned once with her daughter before she realized she had to hire a babysitter. She was in the thick of a competitive race for a Kentucky House seat, and she could easily spend all day canvassing suburban Louisville — but her toddler couldn’t.

“We got through 11 doors before she had to pee,” Raymond deadpanned.

Raymond wasn’t sure her family could afford more babysitting bills. So in July, she became the first-ever candidate in Kentucky to ask state election officials if she could pay for child care with campaign funds.

She wasn’t the only one asking. In May 2018, Liuba Grechen Shirley, a candidate for U.S. Congress in New York, won a groundbreaking ruling from the Federal Election Commission that allowed her to use campaign dollars for child care in specific, campaign-related cases.

Inspired by that victory, mothers running for office in at least seven states have pushed election officials to clarify what decades-old state campaign finance laws have to say about child care.”