Little money was raised in the 59th Ohio House District race between incumbent Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, and his Democratic opponent, Laura Schaeffer, in the latest filing period.

Cutrona raised $9,326 in the preprimary period, between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28, while Schaeffer, a Beloit councilwoman, raised $1,362.

Cutrona spent $22,877 — with $10,000 of it going to the committee for state Rep. Justin Pizzulli, R-Franklin Furnace — while Schaeffer spent $47.

Thanks to money raised in previous filing periods, Cutrona had $163,792 in his campaign fund as of Feb. 28 compared to $1,315 for Schaeffer.

The district, which includes parts of Mahoning County and a small part of Columbiana County, favors Republicans by more than 12% based on partisan statewide voting trends in the past decade.

In the 58th Ohio House District race, incumbent Lauren McNally, D-Youngstown, didn’t file a preprimary report even though she was supposed to do so. McNally had $45,959 in her fund as of Dec. 31.

Emily Ciccone of Austintown filed as a Republican write-in candidate for the seat. She won’t be an official candidate until after the March 19 primary results are certified and she gets at least 50 votes. She is not required to file a preprimary report.

The district, which includes parts of Mahoning County, favors Democrats by 21% based on statewide voting trends.

COURT OF APPEALS

In the Republican primary for the Youngstown-based 7th District Court of Appeals seat, the husband of Columbiana County Municipal Court Judge Katelyn Dickey loaned $150,000 to his wife’s campaign during the preprimary period. Benjamin Dickey of Lisbon loaned the money on Feb. 9.

Dickey’s campaign also received $300 in contributions and $628 in in-kind contributions from the candidate.

She loaned $200,000 to her campaign on July 12.

Mary DeGenaro of Poland, the other Republican in the race, raised $17,025 from donors and received a $45,000 loan from her husband, Steve, during the preprimary period. She also received $2,894 in in-kind contributions.

Dickey’s campaign spent $314,427 during the preprimary period with $303,432 going to Communications Counsel of Granville for television, radio and digital advertising and campaign mail.

DeGenaro’s campaign spent $17,167 with $10,769 going to Cumulus Media and $4,979 to iHeart Media, both for radio ads.

Dickey’s campaign had $1,889 compared to $44,858 for DeGenaro, a former Ohio Supreme Court justice who served 17 years on this appeals bench, as of Feb. 28.

The seat was vacated Dec. 31 with the resignation of David D’Apolito, a Democrat.

The winner of the Republican primary will be appointed to the unexpired term by Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican.

A state law went into effect with the 2022 election that requires candidates running for the court of appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court to have party affiliations after their names on ballots if they run in primaries.

Because the district favors Republicans, no Democrat filed for the seat in this election.

The appeals court has jurisdiction over Mahoning, Columbiana, Belmont, Carroll, Harrison, Jefferson, Monroe and Noble counties. Mahoning is by far the most populous county in the district.

Have an interesting story? Contact David Skolnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.