Adams was a loyal, straight-ticket-voting Republican until an unknown fellow educator named Glenda Ritz jumped into the race for state schools’ chief three years ago.
Before she even punched the ballot for the Democrat, Adams launched a social media website, Republicans for Ritz, to galvanize like-minded voters.
As Ritz now plans to enter a crowded race to take on incumbent Republican Gov. Mike Pence, Adams is re-activating her online network.
“I will do anything I can to get this woman elected governor,” she said. “Like the last time, it’s going to be all about the grassroots effort.”
Ritz clearly will need the help if she hopes to succeed. The former school librarian, who'd never held public office until winning the statewide race for superintendent of public instruction in 2012, faces long odds.
With a kick-off announcement set for Thursday, she'll enter the 2016 governor's race with a fraction of the millions of dollars that Pence has already raised. Nor will she have the early labor endorsements picked up by John Gregg, her opponent in the Democratic primary, who narrowly lost the 2012 governor's race to Pence.
But Ritz also enters the race with supporters like Adams, who helped harness discontent among teachers with a stealth social media campaign that brought down Republican Tony Bennett.
The heavily favored incumbent outspent Ritz 10 to 1 in an election that gave the GOP a super-majority in the General Assembly. In beating Bennett, Ritz also garnered more votes in her race than Pence did in his.
“If people get to the polls, it changes everything,” said Rick Muir, president of the American Federation of Teachers in Indiana, which helped elect Ritz the first time.
The ATF has yet to endorse in the governor’s race. But Muir said many teachers remain angry about sweeping changes made by Republicans in the Statehouse - first championed by Bennett and then-Gov. Mitch Daniels, and continued under Pence.
More money is now directed to private school vouchers, while teacher pay is increasingly tied to student performance in a system that teachers say is unfair.
In what was seen as a personal assault on Ritz, Pence pushed and later signed a bill to remove her from her key role as chairwoman of the State Board of Education.
“Without a doubt, there’s very strong support for Glenda among teachers,” Muir said.
An April poll found growing sentiment for her among the electorate, as well. The non-partisan Indiana Howey Politics Poll - conducted by Republican pollster Christine Matthews of Bellwether Research - found Ritz trailing Pence by just a few points in a hypothetical race.
That was when Ritz was just hinting at a run for governor and before she spent any of the meager $132,000 in her campaign war chest.
Ritz is used to being a spendthrift, relying more on supporters’ fervor than cash.
In 2012, she spent only $300,000 – compared to Bennett’s $1.6 million and Pence’s $6 million.
“The misread here could be the same thing that happened when she faced Tony Bennett,” said Matthews. “With almost no money and no ads up on TV, they thought, 'She’s not a serious threat.'”
The Howey poll came soon after Pence signed the divisive Religious Freedom Restoration Act, stirring up a storm of protest. It showed Pence losing significant ground among women – Democrats and Republicans – between the ages of 30 and 65.
It's a demographic that the Ritz campaign successfully targeted last time around, Matthews said.
Much of Ritz’s money three years ago came in $25 donations from teachers, as traditional big-money Democratic donors put their money into other races.
For that contribution, donors got what was called a “campaign in a box” - a Ritz yard sign, five bumper stickers and 40 postcards they were asked to sign and send to family and friends with a plea to support Ritz. The campaign distributed more than 120,000 teacher-to-voter postcards.
Coupled with that grassroots activism was an aggressive social media campaign built by Democratic political consultant David Galvin, now Ritz’s communications director at the Indiana Department of Education.
Using Facebook and Twitter, the campaign targeted messages that tapped voters’ concerns about the changes to public education and dwindling dollars for schools.
Social media had a dramatic multiplier effect as teachers – irate with Bennett – amplified those messages. Ritz’s Facebook page had reached over 1.3 million users by Election Day.
“There’s no reason to believe they’re not going to put that same kind of strategy in place again,” Matthews said.
That’s still to come. In the meantime, Ritz has scheduled multiple appearances around the state for Thursday and Friday to get the word word out about her campaign. Her first stop is a public high school in Indianapolis, where she’s expected to lay out reasons for why she’s running.
Republicans for Ritz founder Sharon Adams hopes to be at one of this week's events. She expects Ritz to have a tougher time during this campaign than she did three years ago, since she now has a record as an elected official to run against.
But she sees Ritz as more than a candidate.
“Glenda Ritz is a movement,” Adams said. “And that’s hard to stop.”