Amid lawsuits, allegations of domestic violence, and calls to step aside from both of Ohio’s Republican U.S. Senators, Ohio Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller is still running for reelection in November and his constituents say they are looking for consequences and accountability.

Heather Tuck-Macalla lives with her family in Bay Village, a town just west of Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie.

She’s a librarian who has worked for years in the Cleveland area, and she loves Bay Village, the town she shares with Miller. But she says that’s a fact she wouldn’t know just from living in the area.

“He’s almost not human to me because I’ve never seen him around and he lives two blocks away from me,” Tuck-Macalla said last week.

Miller represents Ohio’s 7th U.S. House district in Congress. The Northeast Ohio district goes from the west side of Cuyahoga County south down past the city of Wooster. It includes southern and western Cuyahoga County, all of Medina and Wayne Counties, and the northernmost part of Holmes County.

John Blockinger, a retired Parma resident, said he’s trying to stay positive, but has been discouraged by the actions of Congress, including Miller, even before he became front-page news for allegations of domestic violence.

“I can’t believe that they haven’t just kicked his butt out of there,” Blockinger said. “And the (fellow congressional) Republicans should be doing more to get him out, because he’s going to be a drag on them in November.”

Multiple allegations of domestic violence have been leveled against Miller including by his ex-wife, the daughter of Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno.

Moreno denounced Miller, saying that Miller doesn’t meet “the basic criteria of serving in Congress,” but has received criticism for the time it took for him to release a public statement.

Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted has also called on Miller to resign and drop out of his race for reelection, as have several Democratic members of Ohio’s congressional delegation, U.S. Reps. Shontel Brown and Emilia Sykes.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson told Politico he won’t ask Miller to step down.

Miller has made no indication that he will drop out of the race, and has requested an ethics probe on himself, something he believes will clear his name. The Democratic candidate in the race is Brian Poindexter, and independent write-in candidates have also filed.

Congressional ethics investigation 

Ethics investigations aren’t an uncommon thing for the U.S. House to deal with, though they are more commonly focused on campaign conduct or finance questions. But the discretion of a House ethics panel is broad, said Case Western Reserve University School of Law Professor Cassandra Burke Robertson.

“There’s really no limit, the committee can investigate pretty much anything that would be relevant to either somebody’s serving in the House, or there’s a very broad view of anything that could bring disrepute onto Congress, onto the House,” said Robertson, the director of the Center for Professional Ethics at the Case Western School of Law.

While many ethics investigations delve into the weeds of congressional procedure, something the public may or may not be interested in, the situation with Miller is bringing a lot of eyes to the proceedings, according to Robertson.

“I think what makes the allegations in this case so publicly interesting is that so many people have had experience with difficult divorces, with allegations of domestic abuse, either they’ve experienced it or they certainly know people who have,” Robertson said. “There’s just a lot more public attention, given the allegations.”

A resolution from the investigation will involve a lot of patience, as ethics probes tend to take time, she said.

The House panel will consider documents, gather data, possibly hold hearings, and then decide on the appropriate level of punishment, from no punishment at all, to censure or the worst-case scenario of full House expulsion.

Robertson said she wouldn’t be surprised if the investigation stretches past November.

“An investigation that serious would take some time, and if the investigation found serious consequences (were needed) and moved toward expulsion, I would be surprised if that could happen quickly, likely not before the election,” she said.

The political pressure surrounding the investigation could have a quicker timeline, with Republican members of Congress in particular seeing pushes for action.

“It’s got to be in the back of the minds of the other Congressmembers,” Robertson said. “I have no doubt that members are worried about disrepute, and about the political consequences of that.”

’Out of sync’ 

Constituents in Miller’s congressional district say they don’t feel like he’s representative of the needs of the region.

“I’d really like to get normal people, people who reflect our community better than a lot of these yes men for Trump,” Tuck-Macalla said.

With a Japanese American uncle who lived in internment camps during World War II, the Bay Village resident said she’s worried that patterns are repeating in Congress that lead to negative impacts on large groups of people, such as the immigration crackdown, and the lack of support for public education.

“I don’t feel like the policies Max Miller is supporting are doing what Americans want,” Tuck Macalla said. “Everything that I feel like is a baseline for a good quality of life is being taken away.”

Blockinger has reached out to Miller and the rest of his congressional representatives and senators, pushing back against immigration policies, cuts to Medicaid, and other government spending cuts to public services.

“It’s so out of sync with what we should be doing as a government,” Blockinger said. “I don’t feel represented at all by anyone.”

Hoping for a Democratic wave in the Nov. 3 general election, the Parma grandfather wants to see reversals of Trump executive orders and the Big Beautiful Bill as soon as possible, along with other policies that he saw Miller working “in lock-step” with the Trump administration to implement.

“I think we’ve got to stop basically just being nice guys, and keep pointing out the number of people who are hurt, and the money that’s being lost here,” Blockinger said.

Tuck-Macalla is hopeful the district can move on from Miller and the negative public attention.

“Max Miller does not represent who we are, and with him, I don’t feel very patriotic,” she said.

The Libertarian Party of Ohio released a statement on Aug. 3 “unequivocally” demanding the resignation of Miller, saying his continued presence in Congress “dishonors the district he was elected to serve and sends a dangerous message that powerful politicians are immune to basic standards of conduct.”

“The allegations surrounding Representative Miller reflect a disturbing pattern that goes far beyond partisan politics,” the statement read. “Ohioans in the 7th District deserve an elected official who respects the individual rights both in the halls of Congress and within their own home.”

The Capital Journal reached out for an interview with the Wayne County Republican Party, and the Republican Party of Medina County, both in Miller’s district, but did not receive a response.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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As data centers continue to grow both in numbers and unpopularity, the candidates in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race are calling for more oversight. While they offer contrasting visions for data centers, neither has embraced a full halt in construction desired by advocates.

Incumbent Republican Ohio U.S. Sen. Jon Husted played a pivotal role in bringing several billion-dollar data center projects to Ohio as lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2025. He backed tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks for past projects and consistently defends new data center development, arguing that they create construction jobs and broaden the tax base for rural communities.

“If you’re connected to a wire, you’re using the data center,” Husted said in a July 22 appearance on a conservative podcast. “So, understand that when we look in the mirror, we are the problem.”

Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown slammed Husted’s record of supporting tax breaks for data center developers in two July ads. In a third ad, he promised to make data centers pay the full cost of their electricity use.

He has also said companies should safely process water used to run data systems and that local communities deserve more transparency when making decisions about new projects. Brown has strong support from construction unions, including many that support data center projects because of the jobs they provide. Brown has called to end the data center tax breaks and says that local communities should have a say on whether to allow data center construction.

“Ohioans shouldn’t be forced to subsidize these costs and Ohioans — not Jon Husted and his billionaire friends — should get to decide if data centers are built in their community,” Brown said in a statement for this story.

Husted did not respond when asked to comment for this story.

One day after Brown’s ad was released, Husted introduced the Ratepayer Protection Act, a U.S. Senate bill that would ask states to consider measures to make data centers pay for their electricity usage. Husted has otherwise said the federal government should not get involved, calling data centers a “local issue.”

Husted and Brown are part of a laundry list of politicians — including President Donald Trump, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, and both parties’ nominees to replace him — who have expressed support for “ratepayer protection” policies. The proposals are also backed by a major data center lobbying group and tech companies like Microsoft that own data centers.

Multiple experts said most of the power to lower utility bills lies with regional brokers and state commissions, and federal legislation would do little to move the needle. Even so, Case Western Reserve University energy policy professor Joshua Basseches said the symbolic unity on the issue is encouraging.

“There’s so much partisanship in this country right now that if this could be a bipartisan issue, I think that would be great,” he said.

A full 71% of Ohioans are in favor of a temporary ban, also known as a moratorium, on new data center construction, according to a Bowling Green State University poll.

The Libertarian candidate for governor, Don Kissick, has called for a moratorium. Republican governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said this week that if elected he wants to halt new projects until lawmakers require data centers to offer free electricity to nearby residents. Last month, Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton announced her support for a conditional moratorium on data centers if requirements on costs, union labor, transparency, environmental standards, community benefit agreements, and development are not met.

Austin Baurichter is a lawyer and volunteer for anti-data center advocacy group Conserve Ohio, which is gathering signatures to put a moratorium on data centers on the 2027 ballot. He compared Brown and Husted’s promises to regulate data centers to a politician handing an umbrella to someone drowning in a flood.

“Anything less than a full, 12-month moratorium on any advancement of any kind of a data center development falls short of what the people of this state are asking for,” he said.

Husted’s record on data centers

One month into Husted’s tenure as lieutenant governor, Google announced its first major data center in Ohio: a $600 million project in New Albany.

“Google investing in Ohio to open a new data center is great news for our state,” Husted said in a press release at the time. “Ohio is establishing itself as a premier destination for technology investment, and it further strengthens our case that Ohio is becoming the tech capital of the Midwest.”

The deal came with a reported 15-year, $43.5 million sales tax break from the state. Amazon got $81 million in state tax incentives for a data center in Hilliard in 2014, and Meta’s first data center in New Albany came with a 40-year, $37 million tax break in 2017.

The exemption on new equipment for large data centers flew under the radar when it was passed by the Ohio legislature in 2011.

Hyperscale data centers, or facilities that use more than 40 to 50 megawatts of power, were a small percentage of total data center electricity use at that time, according to an environmental advocacy group. Total electricity consumption across the U.S. grew at a slow 0.1% per year from 2005 to 2020.

A June 2023 press release by Husted touting a $7.8 billion investment by Amazon in the state cited a new use for data centers’ computing power: artificial intelligence.

The number of hyperscale data centers doubled worldwide between 2019 and 2024. Data centers could rise from accounting for 4% of total U.S. electricity consumption right now to 9% by 2030, according to projections by the Electric Power Research Institute.

Tech companies poured tens of billions of dollars into Ohio to build new data centers and expand existing campuses. That $600 million Google data center in 2019 has since ballooned into a project spanning sites in New Albany, Columbus, and Lancaster.

“Data centers are essential to our digital lives, and Google’s additional multibillion-dollar investment further establishes central Ohio as an important tech hub in America,” Husted said in June 2024 as Google announced another $2.3 billion investment in central Ohio.

His time as lieutenant governor ended when he was appointed to the U.S. Senate in January 2025, reducing his public appearances at data center groundbreakings and his say in Ohio’s tax code.

“If Ohio wants to be a leader, a leading edge tech state in the Midwest, having those kinds of investments in the state is important,” he said in an interview with Signal Ohio in 2025.

Signal Ohio later reported that the state lost out on $1.6 billion in taxes from data centers in 2025, more than 11 times what they expected. Gov. Mike DeWine has since paused applications for new tax exemptions for data centers.

Meanwhile, U.S. electricity consumption rose 1.7% per year from 2020 to 2026. The average Ohio electricity bill grew by more than 53% from June 2021 to June 2026, far more than the national average, according to the Electricity Price Hub from Heatmap and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Brown’s record on data centers

Brown’s record on data centers started before Ohio had a sales tax exemption for them. As a first-term U.S. senator in 2010, Brown secured $2.8 million in funding for a Dayton-area research center to develop water cooling technology for large data centers.

Today, water cooling systems make large data centers more energy efficient, but they created another problem: A large data center can use up to five million gallons of water per day, according to a 2025 report by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

That water must be cooled before it is put back in the environment, Case Western Reserve University environmental law professor Victor Flatt explained, or it can affect local wildlife.

Brown acknowledged this in a June interview with Spectrum News, saying, “They’ve got to make sure that they process the water right and recirculate it.”

Brown did not specify any stance on environmental regulations for data centers in a statement for this story. As a congressman from 1993 to 2025, his only public statement on data centers was a press release welcoming Amazon Web Services to New Albany in 2015.

On the campaign trail 11 years later, Brown has repeatedly criticized the “out-of-control” tax breaks under Husted’s watch and labeled him “the face of data centers” in ads.

Would the Ratepayer Protection Act protect ratepayers?

Both candidates promise to make data centers pay the full cost of their electricity usage.

The White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which asks data center developers to pay for their utility usage, received commitments from about 200 entities and endorsements from several sitting governors, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.

A companion bill to Husted’s Ratepayer Protection Act passed out of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce by a unanimous vote in July.

Even so, experts say relief from the federal government in the near future is unlikely.

Public utilities are generally regulated by state commissions like the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, consultant David M. Klaus said. Klaus worked in the U.S. Department of Energy under three Democratic administrations and wrote a report about the limits of federal action to regulate data centers’ utility bills.

Case Western energy policy professor Basseches said that this is why Congressional legislation like Husted’s Ratepayer Protection Act is narrow in scope.

“The federal government has never been involved in this way, certainly not in a legislative capacity,” Basseches said. “If this thing were to ever cross the finish line and become law, I expect there would be a lot of legal challenges and a lot of fights over authority between different states and the feds.”

PUCO allowed major utility provider AEP Ohio to treat data centers differently in 2025, but a June bill in the state legislature that would have extended the practice across the state didn’t reach the finish line before the legislature’s summer recess.

Other concerns about data centers: the environment and transparency

More power demand from data centers means more power plants, Flatt said. PJM Interconnection, a regional broker that makes sure there is enough power supply to meet demand in Ohio and 12 other states, came up 6.8 gigawatts short in its most recent auction. It warned that data centers may face involuntary outages as a result.

Flatt said new plants in Ohio are likely to be powered by fossil fuels. A 10-gigawatt data center project in Piketon — expected to be the largest data center in the world — will be powered by a new $33.3 billion natural gas plant.

Husted has expressed support for fossil fuels and nuclear energy to power data centers since 2023. He has also criticized wind and solar energy, saying they are “inadequate” to meet increased demand.

In most places, Flatt said solar energy with battery power backup is the cheapest, easiest, fastest form of energy production to build and permit.

“But some states like Ohio and the federal government have put some roadblocks in front of developing solar and certainly in front of developing wind, which would be the second-cheapest,” he added. “That’s going to lead to increased air pollution.”

Chevron donated $200,000 to a super PAC supporting Husted’s election bid in June, and a super PAC that backs nuclear energy spent almost $75,000 on ads supporting him in the second quarter. He also has deep ties to Ohio’s utility lobby.

While Brown has not directly addressed the intersection of data centers and energy production, he consistently supported clean energy initiatives while in the Senate.

Both candidates have otherwise said they see data centers as a local issue. At a July 11 stop in Ironton, Brown said the approval process should be “a local decision with everyone knowing what is at stake.”

The failed June bill included a provision stating that public records requests can supersede nondisclosure agreements, a common tactic used by data center developers to keep plans secret.

While Husted backs data centers, Brown is silent on the prospect of a moratorium

Hyperscale data centers bring jobs to local communities, leading many prominent Ohio labor unions to support them.

Dorsey Hager, the executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbus-Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, estimated in May that data centers make up at least 40%of work hours by union members.

The Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed Brown in March. The president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, another large union backing Brown’s election campaign, also defended data centers because of the jobs they create.

Democratic nominee for Ohio governor Amy Acton said she would not allow data centers into the state if they do not meet several requirements, including stipulations on union labor, environmental standards, and more. Brown did not respond to a question for this story asking for his reaction to the policy.

Andrew Gula, a volunteer who gathers signatures for Conserve Ohio’s proposed data center moratorium, said he hears a variety of opinions from people who work on building and powering AI data centers. Some have told him they feel like they’re helping automate others’ jobs, and for others, “it is what it is,” he said.

Baurichter, another volunteer for Conserve Ohio, lives in Higginsport, a small village on the Ohio River. He said support for data centers because of the jobs they create in rural Ohio reflects a “corporate-centric” mindset that puts people second.

The lack of support among top Ohio politicians for a moratorium has made him increasingly disillusioned with the political system, he said, adding that Conserve Ohio aims to “take things into our own hands” by collecting signatures for its 2027 ballot initiative.

Baurichter estimated that around 65% of Conserve Ohio’s members are conservative or voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. In Ohio’s U.S. Senate election this November, he said “any reasonable person” opposed to data centers would vote for the “lesser of two evils.”

“But that misses altogether that this is nothing but a perpetuation of the same dysfunction that this government has exhibited for decades, that people are waking up to,” he said.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, on Sunday said Rep. Max Miller, also of Ohio and his former son-in-law, is not fit to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives as he faces allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife, who is Moreno’s daughter. 

Moreno did not publicly address the domestic abuse allegations against Miller, also an Ohio Republican, when new details of them were reported in mid-July. But in a post on X Sunday, he wrote that Miller “needs serious psychological help” and is a danger to his daughter. 

“I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter,” Moreno wrote. “If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them.”

Miller has emphatically denied allegations of abuse against both Moreno and the couple’s daughter. He also pushed back against his former father-in-law’s statement on social media later Sunday, questioning its timing and denouncing it as “all political.”

“If my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn’t wait two years before holding him accountable,” Miller wrote, referring to Moreno’s comment in the social media post that “the last two years have been pure hell” for his family.

Abuse allegations

In court documents obtained and first reported in mid-July by Mother Jones, Emily Moreno told police detectives in Ohio that the second-term Republican had pushed her, thrown hot water from a pan at her and pointed a gun at her head during their relationship. 

Miller and Emily Moreno married in 2022, but Miller filed for divorce in 2024, according to the report. The two have since been locked in a custody battle over their only daughter, who was born in 2023, and currently retain joint custody, it said. 

The detectives were investigating why the couple’s 2-year-old daughter had broken her collarbone, the Mother Jones report said. Neither Moreno nor Miller said they knew the source of their daughter’s injury, it said.

But, according to Mother Jones’ report, local authorities and child protection experts investigating the case determined that the bruising, which they said was similar to that of a handprint, around the injury made it suspicious, and that such an injury would have necessitated a “high degree of impact to occur.”

The magazine also reported that Moreno told the police that, given the congressman’s past, she couldn’t rule out Miller was the cause, and had further recounted her daughter saying that “daddy’s house is scary.” 

No charges have been filed against Miller, and there has been no official determination that any child abuse has occurred. 

But this is not the first time Miller has been accused of abuse. 

Stephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary toward the end of President Donald Trump’s first term, accused him in 2021 of abusing her while they were dating several years ago, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. He denied those allegations as well, and filed a defamation lawsuit against her — which he ultimately dropped in 2023. 

Miller pushes back 

Miller, an ally of Trump’s and former adviser during his first term, has also released a DropBox page containing scores of documents compiled by his personal lawyers. They detail various aspects of the couple’s divorce and custody proceedings, containing personal communications, selected court filings and audio transcripts. He pointed to the documents as evidence against the domestic and child abuse claims. 

In a 20-minute livestream on X Sunday, Miller again defended himself against the allegations and said he plans to stay in the race for reelection and win in November. Since he already has won his primary election, Ohio Republicans would only have until Wednesday to find a replacement candidate. 

Miller has also filed a lawsuit against Emily Moreno, alleging that she has defamed him and portrayed him in false light. 

In his initial complaint filed in May, Miller argued that the allegations were part of a “defamatory campaign” against him to “falsely portray him as a violent and abusive father and husband.” 

Moreno’s lawyers have described Miller’s defamation suit in a court filing as a “bad-faith, scorched-earth litigation strategy seeking to punish Ms. Moreno.” 

Trump doesn’t call for resignation

Bernie Moreno’s calls for Miller to resign have so far not been echoed by much of the Republican establishment. 

Many of Miller’s fellow Ohio Republicans have yet to weigh in, including the state’s junior senator, Jon Husted. The senator did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

After an executive order signing ceremony Monday, Trump called Miller a “very good person” and said that he will let the families work it out. “It’s accusations, and I’m gonna let them figure that out,” he said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said in May, before the allegations of child abuse were further detailed, that he doesn’t “get involved in the personal lives of members,” NBC News reported. 

“You know, he’s refuted some of these allegations, and he’s got to work that out,” he said. 

Asked last week why allegations against former Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner pressured him to drop out of the race there, but allegations against Miller and fellow Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida have yet not resulted in either being removed from the conference, Johnson said “the key word there is ‘allegation.’”

He added that the House Ethics Committee has its own process for investigating allegations. But no formal investigation has been announced into Miller. 

Johnson’s office did not return a request for comment Monday afternoon. 

Democrats jump in

With Miller facing intense public scrutiny, some congressional Democrats are looking for an opportunity to flip his seat amid what’s poised to be a highly competitive battle for control of the House in this November’s midterms. 

He is facing Democratic challenger Brian Poindexter, an ironworker and local city councilman in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District. Poindexter has received endorsements from several national labor unions and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, but he still lags far behind in campaign fundraising. 

Miller, first elected in 2022, received just more than 51% of the vote in 2024. 

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Ohio Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Sherrod Brown raised more than twice as much as incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Jon Husted from April to June, according to campaign finance filings from both campaigns.

Congressional candidates must file several financial disclosures throughout the year of their election. Reports for the second quarter of 2026 were due July 15.

Brown’s campaign announced $14.1 million in direct second-quarter donations, with an added $3 million coming from an affiliated PAC. Husted’s campaign reported $3.4 million in direct donations and $4.3 million from three affiliated PACs.

“Ohioans across the state are fed up with Jon Husted, who repeatedly puts corporations, billionaires, and special interests first at the expense of hard working families,” said Patrick Eisenhauer, Brown’s campaign manager.

In a press release, the Husted campaign touted its performance as the largest second-quarter fundraising total ever posted by an Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate.

This is the third straight U.S. Senate election in Ohio where the Democratic nominee’s early summer fundraising haul was significantly larger than his Republican opponent. Former Ohio U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan outraised now-Vice President J.D. Vance by $6.8 millionfrom April to June 2022, and Brown outraised now-U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno by $6 millionfrom April to June 2024.

Both elections ended in Democratic losses at the ballot box. The 2024 race became the most expensive non-presidential election in American history, and while Brown more than tripled Moreno’s campaign spending, Republican groups still outspent Democratic groups by over $75 million.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision will also strengthen the role of political parties to help campaigns this election cycle. Ruling on a case out of Ohio brought by Vance, in a 6-3 decision the court struck down limits on how much political parties could spend in coordination with specific candidates.

Spending

This time around, Brown spent over $11.5 million on advertising in the second quarter. Some in-house ads touted his positions on healthcare and Congressional stock trading, and three ads sought to tie Husted to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Brown also released a trio of ads on data centers in July.

While Brown raised about $4.3 million more than he did in the second quarter of 2024, he was also more frugal, spending over $2.5 million less on advertising. The former three-term senator reported $16.2 million cash on hand at the end of June.

Meanwhile, Husted’s campaign bought more than five times Moreno’s ad spending over the same period in 2024. His principal committee, Husted for Senate, paid for his first television ad of the cycle in late April. A pair of May ads attacking Brown’s Congressional record came from Husted Victory, a secondary committee.

His campaign reported over $11 million cash on hand, more than double Moreno’s cash balance in June 2024.

The two campaigns are far from the only groups with money in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race. Outside groups have already committed to spend over $174 million in the race, and AdImpact projects total spending to reach $749 million by Election Day.

The Republican-backed Senate Leadership Fund has already spent $700,000 in the race this year, and it plans to spend $79 million in total. Democratic-backed Senate Majority PAC has committed $64 million to the race.

Most of the outside spending in the second quarter came from two Republican super PACs. Americans for Prosperity Action, Inc., a super PAC bankrolled by Republican megadonor Charles Koch, spent over $3.1 million starting in April.

Ohio Flyer PAC paid over $445,000 for its April “Party’s Over” ad targeting Brown’s Congressional record, part of over $1.6 million in second-quarter ad spending. The super PAC is solely dedicated to supporting Husted’s election bid, and its name references Husted’s time on the University of Dayton’s football team.

Fundraising

Ohio Flyer PAC received its largest donation of the second quarter from A Public Voice, Inc., a Virginia-based dark money group that has given millions to Republican super PACs in past elections.

Nonprofits like A Public Voice, Inc., do not have to disclose their donors. A Public Voice, Inc. has history in Ohio U.S. Senate races: It gave $315,000 to a super PAC that opposed Brown in 2018, and it donated $850,000 to a super PAC backing Republican state Sen. Jane Timken’s primary run in 2022.

Brian Colleran, the CEO of an Ohio nursing home chain, and Chevron also gave Ohio Flyer PAC six-figure donations. A super PAC can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, but it cannot directly coordinate with a candidate’s campaign committee.

Husted’s campaign received its largest donations of the second quarter, including a combined $637,200 from two Jane Street Capital executives, through Husted Victory. Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm, has made a recent push into artificial intelligence and data centers.

His campaign also accepted a total of $69,750 in smaller donations from the political action committees of utility companies like American Electric Power and Duke Energy, as well as tech companies like Oracle and Meta.

Other prominent Husted donors include Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, who regularly donate to Republican campaigns. Cleveland Browns executives and members of the Haslam family gave Husted a combined $292,000 in the second quarter.

Only one person gave more than $50,000 to a committee affiliated with Brown’s campaign in the second quarter: Joe Kanfer, the former CEO of an Akron-based company that produces Purell hand sanitizer. Brown received most of his largest individual donations through Ohio Grassroots Victory Fund, an affiliated committee.

James McClave, another Jane Street trader who gave millions to a dark money group that supported former President Joe Biden in 2024, donated $7,000 to Brown’s campaign committee.

McClave was also an early investor in artificial intelligence giant Anthropic, which is spending millions in favor of AI regulation. Anthropic’s general legal counsel, Jeff Bleich, gave $20,500 to Brown’s campaign committees in the second quarter.

Brown reported over $5.1 million in donations through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue, and Husted reported $500,000 from the Republican equivalent WinRed. The former senator had over 135,000 donors in Q2, including nearly 70,000 first-time donors, according to a press release.

The next campaign finance reporting deadline for Congressional candidates will be Oct. 15.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine reflected on his time in office, shared plans for his life post-politics, and briefly discussed the current governor’s race during a recent forum. 

DeWine was the guest at last week’s Columbus Metropolitan Club forum that was moderated by Ohio Public Radio and TV reporter Jo Ingles. DeWine, who is term-limited, has about 230 days left as Ohio’s governor. 

“Part of what I’m trying to do in the last 235 days is to finish your work,” he said. “Work is never done.”

DeWine endorsed Republican Vivek Ramaswamy for governor earlier this year, despite working alongside the Democratic candidate Amy Acton when she was the director of the state health department. 

“It’s clear where I stand,” DeWine said. “I’m a Republican. I’m for the Republican nominee. The Republican nominee is Vivek Ramaswamy.” 

DeWine said he has had many discussions with Ramaswamy, who said earlier this year he wants to consolidate Ohio colleges and universities — saying “We have too many of them.”

“When you ask him one of the most important things you want to do, (Ramaswamy’s) answer is to grow jobs, bring companies in, and second, make sure that we have educated people,” DeWine said. “We should not mistake governing for the campaign.” 

Despite DeWine’s loyalty to the Republican Party, he has disagreed with President Donald Trump over issues including Haitian immigrants, the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, and the 2020 election. 

“The job of the governor is to be the governor of the people of the state of Ohio,” DeWine said when asked why is not more critical of Trump. 

“I cannot wake up every morning and think … what did the president do? … My job is to focus on the people of Ohio, and what I can actually do, and what I can accomplish.” 

On the topic of state politics, DeWine signed a bill into law in 2023 that requires citizens to show photo identification before voting, but stopped short of endorsing a constitutional amendment Ohio Republicans are trying to put on the ballot. 

“I haven’t seen the final language on it,” he said. 

DeWine has been saying for months he will make an announcement about Ohio’s death penalty and hinted during the forum that it will be coming soon. The last person to be executed in Ohio was in 2018, shortly before DeWine took office in 2019. 

“I don’t want to build this up because I’m going to do it shortly, and I think there’s been a lot of hype about this, but there really shouldn’t be,” DeWine said. “It’ll simply be Mike DeWine reflecting on the death penalty.”

Thinking back on his time in office, DeWine said his “biggest mistake” was signing the gambling bill into law in December 2021. 

“What I did not anticipate — and I should have — is the massive, massive amount of money that these gambling companies would come in … and they flood the airways,” he said. 

More Ohioans are gambling and losing money, and athletes are being abused online as a result of sports betting, DeWine said. 

He said the most important work he has done is focus on Ohio’s children — specifically through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program, requiring Ohio schools to teach the science of reading curriculum, and creating the Ohio Student Eye Exam (OhioSee) program that provides students in kindergarten through third grade comprehensive eye exams and glasses at schools. 

“If we’re serious about reading, if we’re serious about early childhood development, what we call Ohio See, I hope the next governor will take OhioSee … and run with that,” DeWine said. 

DeWine, who will turn 80 the week he leaves office in January, plans to spend more time with his 28 grandchildren after his term expires. He said is going to set up a center at his alma mater Miami University. 

“We’re not sure exactly what, but we think it’s going to be a focus on children,” said DeWine, who graduated with a degree in education. “One thing I would like to do is to help social studies teachers.” 

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Ohio Republican lawmakers are trying to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot that requires voters to show photo identification in order to vote.  

Lawmakers in the Ohio House and Senate introduced joint resolutions this week to enshrine voter photo ID laws into Ohio’s constitution. 

House Joint Resolution 9 was introduced by Ohio Reps. Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, and Heidi Workman, R-Rootstown. 

Senate Joint Resolution 10 was introduced by state Sens. Jane Timken, R-Jackson Township, and Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green. 

“This is about fair and free elections,” Timken said. “Voters need to know that when someone goes to vote, that it is the actual person who is registered to vote, and we do that by photo ID. This is overwhelmingly supported, not only by Republicans, but Democrats.” 

The Pew Research Center showed 83% of Americans support requiring photo identification to vote. 

“If you want to rent a car, you want to go to a hotel, get on an airplane, you need to show photo ID,” said state Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson.

“If you want to buy alcohol or even certain medicines, you need a photo ID. It makes all the sense in the world that when we’re talking about something as serious and as important as the integrity of our elections, that it would also require a photo ID.”

If an Ohio voter is unable to provide a valid photo ID in person on election day, the joint resolutions would allow a voter to cast their ballot provisionally and provide photo ID at the board of elections by the deadline for their ballot to be counted. 

The resolutions require three-fifths approval to be placed on the November ballot. 

“I think the voters will decide that they want to protect it,” Bird said. “It’s wildly popular.”

Ohio law already requires citizens to provide photo identification before voting thanks to a bill the lawmakers passed in 2022 and took effect in 2023. 

“We have some of the most restrictive election laws,” said state Rep. Phil Robinson, D-Solon. “This legislation is unnecessary.”

A valid photo ID includes an unexpired driver’s license, state ID card, a passport, a U.S. military ID card, an Ohio national guard ID card, or an ID card issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, said he hopes to pass the Senate’s resolution either June 10 or June 17. 

“(The joint resolutions are) in response to some voter integrity concerns that have been happening nationally,” McColley said. 

McColley is running for the job of lieutenant governor in November, alongside Republican governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy has said Ohio must enshrine voter ID in the state constitution.

“Voter confidence in our election system is lower than it’s been in a while, and I think it’s important that we offer the voters the opportunity …  to decide for themselves whether they want to put this in the constitution, offering it the highest possible level of protection to secure the system that they have in place to secure the fundamental right of voting … for generations to come,” said McColley. 

Hawaii and Virginia had voter photo ID requirements laws, but those laws were repealed. 

“When you see these kinds of examples happening in other states, it becomes imperative that we protect photo ID in Ohio by placing it …  in the Constitution,” Bird said. 

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost brought forth six indictments for voter fraud in 2024 after receiving 600 referrals of alleged voter fraud from the Ohio Secretary of State. The indicted were accused of voting at least once between 2008 and 2020 despite not being U.S. citizens then. 

“Election fraud is so very rare,” said Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood. 

“I think this is an attempt by the Republicans to have an election go their way, because without doing something extraordinary like this, rather than just appeal to the voters on the basis of their policies, they’re actually limiting the amount of people that can vote because they see that as their path to winning.” 

Robinson worries these joint resolutions could potentially take away early voting or mail-in ballots. 

“I don’t see how that helps Ohioans be able to have their voice heard at the ballot box,” he said. 

McColley, however, said there are no plans to get rid of early mail-in voting or absentee voting in Ohio. 

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Today, Ohioans are coming together in small towns like Cambridge and big cities like Cleveland. They’re calling for a policy agenda that puts workers over billionaires. Yet with Vivek Ramaswamy, we have a leading candidate for governor whose entire platform is putting billionaires like him over hardworking Ohioans.

Ramaswamy has never respected what it takes for many of us to put food on the table and care for our families. Even as a college student, he spoke out against paying Harvard’s janitors a living wage. 

“[I]f the living-wage campaign were successful in achieving a wage increase for Harvard’s lowest-paid workers, it will have done so at the cost of respect that the rest of the Harvard community has for these workers—a cost that, no matter how high the wage increase, is too high to pay,” he wrote in a 2005 Harvard Crimson op-ed. 

I’d be willing to chalk his tortured logic up to youthful ignorance, but the truth is Vivek’s outlook hasn’t changed much. The federal minimum wage sits at $7.25 – so low that a single person working full time would live below the federal poverty line. But Ramaswamy thinks that’s just fine. In fact, in 2021, he testified before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee to argue against policies that would compel corporations to make “a moral judgement” about paying living wages. 

To Ramaswamy, American workers are not only ‘mediocre,’ they’re expendable. As the CEO of Roivant, he raked in $37 million from capital gains and laid off 10% of employees. We can expect more of the same if he becomes governor, because to him, it’s just a way to get his hands into our public coffers and rig the rules for his own profit.

For example, Ramaswamy’s financial disclosure shows that he has a stake in the same venture capital firm – 8VC – that is heavily invested in autonomous weapons manufacturer Anduril. The state of Ohio just gave Anduril $830 million in tax incentives to locate here – money that could be used to fund our schools, repair our roads, or improve our parks. As governor, Ramaswamy would have a direct say over incentives that would benefit his investments. 

Well-paying union jobs and benefits have allowed countless Ohio families to buy a nice home, put food on the table and enjoy a vacation now and then. But we can’t trust Ramaswamy to protect working Ohioans’ right to organize. He wants to eliminate collective bargaining for public school teachers. We’ve seen this  before with Gov. Kasich’s Senate Bill in 2011, but we came together and overturned it at the ballot.

Ramaswamy and his fellow corporate vultures are circling our state – hoping to get a chance to pick at our bones. But we won’t let him strip our communities for parts. And we won’t let him rip off Ohio workers.

Caitlin Johnson is the Senior Communications Director of Innovation Ohio.

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Democratic candidate for governor Amy Acton raised $5.2 million during the first quarter of this year, and since joining the race for governor, she’s cleared $10 million, according to recently released campaign finance reports.

It’s an historic sum for the physician who led Ohio’s health department during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her campaign noted no previous Democratic hopeful has raised so much at this point in the calendar.

That announcement, which revised a previous quarterly fundraising total of $4.8 million, came after Republican Vivek Ramaswamy announced bringing in roughly $5 million from donors.

Despite that showing, however, money is likely a race Acton can’t win.

Although both candidates’ fundraising lands in the same ballpark when it comes to donors, Ramaswamy is a billionaire. Acton is not. In addition to raising $5 million in the first quarter, Ramaswamy cut his campaign a check for $25 million. That’s separate from the Super PAC supporting Ramaswamy, which has raised another $29.5 million thus far.

In a press release, Ramaswamy’s campaign described the candidate’s eight-figure cash infusion as making good on a campaign pledge to spend at least $30 million of his own money on the race.

Meanwhile, Acton’s campaign manager Phil Stein said Ramaswamy is “panicking.”

“He can continue throwing money at his campaign from the seat of his private jet, but Ohioans see right through his false promises,” he said.

Ramaswamy’s $25 million is structured as a loan, meaning he can use money his campaign raises to pay himself back.

Acton’s Q1

Acton garnered over 195,000 total donations in the first quarter, 43% of which came from individual donors. Stein said in a press release these numbers are “proof that Ohioans are ready for change.”

“Ohioans are sick and tired of struggling to make ends meet,” Stein said. “They want a Governor who understands what they are going through instead of claiming affordability is a “buzzword”, and they know Amy is the only candidate in this race who will lower costs and build a state where all of us can thrive.”

Some of Acton’s biggest individual sums came from labor PACs, including United Healthcare Workers East and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Columbus. Acton also received donations from top executives at Amazon, Kroger, and Alpha Generation, an independent power producer.

Her biggest expense was about $1.4 million on digital advertising, nearly all of which went to Liftoff Campaigns LLC. According to POLITICO, the group launched in 2023 to help Democratic candidates align their campaign and fundraising messaging. Acton also spent about 50 bucks on digital ads on X.

The Acton campaign has taken every opportunity available to bash Ramaswamy for flying private. During the first quarter, Acton spent nearly $20,000 on airfare with commercial airlines.

That’s about half of what Ramaswamy spends each month to lease his jet.

Ramaswamy’s Q1

Among Ramaswamy’s big donors are leaders in finance, energy and real estate. He got five grand from an executive at an independent Pepsi bottling company, ten more from Sbarro’s CEO, and the leader of NetJets maxed out for Ramaswamy — giving the campaign $16,615.67.

The second biggest share of funding came in the form of a $290,000 transfer from Rob McColley’s campaign fund. Ramaswamy tapped the Senate President to be his running mate in January. The biggest contribution, of course, came from Ramaswamy himself.

In a press release, Ramaswamy’s campaign manager John Ewing bragged they were “resetting all fundraising benchmarks” and received support from 120,000 unique donors, 98% of whom gave less than $200.

“No gubernatorial campaign in Ohio history has ever put up numbers like this,” he said, “and it sends a clear message: Ohioans are fired up for Vivek, our campaign is growing, and we will win big in November.”

Even more notable is Ramaswamy’s campaign spending. During the first quarter, Ramaswamy spent $12.5 million — or roughly two-and-a-half times what he brought in.

The biggest share of the spending was a $10 million ad buy the campaign announced early last month. At the time, Ewing stated the ad blitz would continue until November.

Nearly $7 million of that total went to The Strategy Group, the Ohio firm that became embroiled in a $220 million ad scandal that contributed to the ouster of Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem. On social media, The Strategy Group stated it only received about a quarter million dollars to produce the ads.

In the first quarter of 2026, Ramaswamy spent nearly $120,000 to lease a private jet. That brings his total spending on the private plane to more than half a million dollars since the campaign began. Notably, the aircraft is leased through a company which Ramaswamy himself owns called V Leasing LLC.

Ramaswamy’s campaign also racked up more than $162,000 in credit card bills during the quarter, including more than $96,000 in the most recent billing period alone.

The Ohio Capital Journal asked Ramaswamy’s campaign if V Leasing earns a return in the private plane arrangement and whether it could provide an itemized statement of its credit card spending. The campaign did not respond.

V-PAC

In addition to his own personal fortune, Ramaswamy stands to gain from the largesse of others. The Super PAC supporting his bid for governor, V-PAC: Victors, not Victims, has raised $29.5 million since the beginning of 2025. At the end of March, it had $23 million in cash on hand.

Super PACs can run ads supporting or opposing specific candidates, but they can’t coordinate with a candidate’s campaign or make direct contributions. The groups also have to report their donors, but there’s no limit on what those donors can contribute.

A single donor, Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass, has so far poured $20 million into V-PAC, including two $5 million contributions during the first quarter of 2026. Yass heads up the investment firm Susquehanna International Group and is worth more than $67 billion according to Forbes.

Back in 2024, when Ohio voters were considering an amendment that would’ve established an independent redistricting commission, Ramaswamy urged Ohioans to vote no. On social media, he complained the effort was being “funded by left-wing billionaires from out-of-state.”

The Super-PAC also received a quarter million dollars from the Scotts Company and $150,000 from the Sports Betting Alliance — a group representing online sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel. A for-profit charter school operator called Pansophic Learning pitched in another $25,000.

Outside of a $3 million ad buy in March of last year, the Super PAC’s spending has been relatively modest. The biggest expense during the first quarter was three $150,000 digital ad buys supporting Ramaswamy spread out roughly every four weeks.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Under intense pressure from a desperate and vindictive boss, U.S. Senate Republicans, including Ohio U.S. Sens. Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, are frantically spinning a radical voter suppression bill as a “simple voter ID” measure. 

What’s not to like? Husted and Moreno know the misnamed “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility America Act” does much more than require a photo ID to vote, yet they never acknowledge the devil in the details. 

The so-called SAVE Act would block millions of American citizens from voting who can’t produce birth certificates or passports to register to vote or update their registrations. 

Some 21 million citizens lack ready access to those documents. 

That doesn’t include 69 million married women nationwide who have changed their names (more than 3 million in Ohio) who would have to jump through extra hoops just to prove their citizenship. 

Less than half of all Americans have passports. If the SAVE Act were enacted, with Husted and Moreno’s help — your driver’s license, REAL ID, or military ID would no longer be good enough to exercise your most fundamental right to vote. 

Effective immediately you would have to show documentary proof of your citizenship for what Donald Trump called “the greatest privilege of them all, voting in America.” 

Sorry, voting is a right not a “privilege” bestowed by a convicted felon who tried to subvert it when an election didn’t go his way. 

Trump is planning a sequel in 2026. 

The SAVE Act is his preemptive manipulation of another election not expected to go his way.

The lower Trump’s approval ratings fall the more he fixates on controlling who gets to vote with gratuitous obstacles championed by regime bootlickers as “commonsense” election reform. 

“It’s going to clean up our elections and give, most importantly, people faith and confidence in our elections,” claimed Moreno, reinforcing Trump’s baseless 2020 lies about rigged elections and rampant voter fraud that sow unfounded doubts about gold standard American elections. 

The SAVE Act that Moreno is cheerleading would make it harder for some Ohioans to cast a ballot if they have to dig up a birth certificate first, (if one even exists) or match a marriage certificate with a maiden name birth certificate, or shell out $165 for a passport that may or may not arrive before the midterms. 

Citizens would also have to show their papers in person. 

Forget about registering to vote by mail, online, or through voter registration drives — methods used by 94% of Americans. 

If the SAVE Act became law now, voter registration systems across the country could be upended with chaos and confusion, a recipe for depressed voter turnout. 

When it is hard to vote — with onerous paperwork that costs time and money to get or in-person registration requirements that stymie rural Ohioans and others with mobility and transportation challenges, many eligible voters don’t. 

The “papers-please” barriers in the SAVE Act, that Moreno and Husted conveniently skip over in their “just-a-voter-ID” script, could sideline millions of citizens in the upcoming election — especially those in rural areas, women, minorities, students, seniors, the disabled, and low-income working Ohioans unable to gather or afford documents never before required to vote. 

Republicans claim the bill is needed to keep noncitizens from voting (which is already illegal) even though study after study has shown they do not vote.

It is a virtually nonexistent problem. Even the right-wing Heritage Foundation concurs. 

Affirmations of citizenship on voter registrations, signed under penalty of perjury, worked for decades without issue until one was invented as a pretext to erect voting hurdles on Americans Trump fears at the polls.

Silencing those voters steals their power to decide the outcome of elections. 

The SAVE Act gives Trump control over who gets to vote and how to engineer favorable election outcomes with the “right voters.” 

Passage of the bill “will guarantee the midterms,” he told GOP lawmakers. 

“We have to win this one,” (the SAVE Act) Trump said, exhorting Republicans to essentially suppress the vote to win in November and save him from a third impeachment. 

“We’ll never lose a race for 50 years,” he promised, but “if we don’t win, they’ll find a reason to impeach me.”

Apparently lost on Trump is how many Republican voters in rural areas or with low incomes will also be impacted. 

Husted championed the SAVE Act even though it would diminish the power of millions of Ohioans to have a voice in elections, on specious grounds of made-up problems. 

As a former chief elections officer in the state, the senator could have dispelled voter fraud and noncitizen voting falsehoods with facts learned on the job. 

But Husted preferred Trump’s endorsement. 

“As I’ve been saying for a decade and a half it is possible to make it both easy to vote and hard to cheat and we should make that a standard with a national ID law that is easy to implement and proven effective.” 

Kansas might beg to differ. 

Its 2013 version of the SAVE Act (with birth certificates or passports) prevented thousands of eligible applicants from registering to vote before the catastrophic law was struck down. 

If denying citizens their right to vote isn’t bad enough, the SAVE Act would also make every state submit full voter rolls to Trump’s shadowy Department of Homeland Security with no restrictions on what DHS can do with the sensitive data it collects. 

Yet Moreno hails the bill as a “long overdue” voting safeguard in his parody of protecting the cornerstone of our democracy: Screw voters; he got a thumbs up from the boss.

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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Ohio House lawmakers have approved a measure aimed at banning ranked choice voting. Under the bill, no state election may be conducted with ranked choice and any local government that decides to use a ranked choice system would forfeit state dollars.

Ohio Senate Bill 63 passed the state Senate last May with bipartisan support. The 63-27 vote in state House drew the backing of two Democrats — Ohio state Reps. Lauren McNally, D-Youngstown, and Daniel Troy, D-Willowick. The measure leverages the Local Government Fund, a critical source of revenue for counties and cities around the state, to warn off local ranked choice efforts.

In written statement before the floor vote, Rank the Vote Ohio Executive Director Denise Riley said threatening local funding amounts to coercion. And she expressed disappointment that lawmakers banned the practice when no municipality in the state is actually using it yet. Two cities, Lakewood and Cleveland Heights, have been considering whether to put the practice on the ballot.

As a general matter, Riley argued transferring voters’ support in a ranked choice system “fixes a lot of problems.”

“No more spoilers. No more “wasted votes.” And it encourages positive campaigns, according to the American Bar Association Task Force for American Democracy.”

House lawmakers tacked on an amendment clarifying the petition papers a political candidate submits to make the ballot are a public record. The bill now returns to the Senate.

Floor debate

Ohio state Rep. Sharon Ray, R-Wadsworth, warned ranked choice voting “presents significant implementation problems.”

The approach gives voters the option to select multiple candidates for a single office in order of their preference. Under a typical system, the lowest performing candidate gets eliminated in successive rounds. But if the voters who backed that eliminated candidate have additional candidates listed on their ballot, their vote gets transferred to their next choice in the following round.

Ray, who previously served on the Medina County Board of Elections, pointed to warnings from the Ohio secretary of state.

“While some voting machines might be able to accept the software update needed to tabulate grant choice voting, the update would be significant and costly,” Ray said. “Boards of elections that have older machines would most likely have to be replaced.”

Ohio state Rep. Ron Ferguson, R-Wintersville, warned ranked choice tabulation can take days or even weeks, and offered a tortured defense of the “one person, one vote” principle.

“We aren’t voting for three or four or five people. We’re voting for one person,” he said. “That’s the foundation of this republic.”

Although ranked choice systems allow a voter’s preference to be reflected in multiple rounds of tabulation, that voter still only gets one vote.

Rep. Adam Bird pointed to research suggesting ranked choice doesn’t reduce political polarization and might dilute minority voter representation. He added the public education campaign that would be needed for a new ranked choice system could be expensive.

More than anything, though, he voiced frustration with the idea of transferring votes.

“I can point to Alaska,” he said. “This happened in 2022, where there were three candidates, the two Republican candidates got 60 to 70% of the vote. But yet, after the process is implemented, the Democrat wins that.”

“In Maine in 2018,” Bird continued, “the Republican wins the first round but gets less than 50% of the vote because of the presence of two independents in the process. And so after you have exhausted ballots, you end up with a Democrat who wins that.”

It’s true that in Maine, a Republican got a plurality in the first round, and in successive rounds, the Democrat pulled ahead. But that cuts against Bird’s argument in Alaska.

The 2022 election cycle was closely watched because former Republican nominee for Vice President Sarah Palin decided to run in a special election for the U.S. House. If Bird was referring to that race, it’s true that the GOP candidates combined got a majority of votes in the first round, but the Democrat, former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola got the most votes of any candidate. In successive rounds, her margins grew until she cleared 50%.

When she ran again in that year’s general election, Peltola won again and actually improved on her margins.

Pushback

The only lawmaker to speak out against the proposal was Ohio state Rep. Ashley Bryant Bailey, D-Cincinnati. She argued the version of ranked choice Cincinnati used for local elections from 1925 to 1957 helped boost minority representation.

“This system reduced the domination of a single political machine and made Council representation more proportional,” Bryant Bailey said. “Under that system, African American candidates began being elected to council.”

One beneficiary was Ted Berry, who went on to become Cincinnati’s first Black mayor, Bryant Bailey explained.

She pushed back on Bird’s research, explaining she’d seen plenty of peer-reviewed studies demonstrating minorities do just fine, and maybe even participate at higher rates, under ranked choice.

“We all can find something to validate our plans,” Bryant Bailey said.

She concluded by explaining she’s not advocating for a ranked choice system and that she didn’t believe the debate was actually about ranked choice.

“This bill is not about protecting voters. It’s about control,” she said. “What this bill does is effectively ban ranked choice, but more than that, it tells our cities and our voters that we do not trust them to govern themselves.”

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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