Mark Zetzer, who withdrew from the 2024 Republican primary for the 14th Congressional District seat, said he is going to challenge U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce next year.

Zetzer, of Russell, said the Republicans he’s talked to “don’t think anyone can defeat (Joyce) in a primary. That may be so, but I still don’t trust Dave Joyce to cast America First votes in Congress to make America great again.”

Joyce, of Bainbridge, is a seven-term House member.

The 14th District includes all of Trumbull, Ashtabula, Lake and Geauga counties and all but two communities in Portage County. Trumbull is the district’s second most-populous county behind Lake.

The congressional district had a 10% Republican advantage based on votes in partisan statewide elections in the 10 years prior to the 2024 election. Joyce has far exceeded that percentage when he’s run. He won by 26.8% in last year’s general election.

The state’s congressional district lines will be redrawn this year in time for the 2026 election.

Zetzer was among three Republicans to file against Joyce in the 2024 primary, but withdrew saying he wanted to let the two others challenge Joyce. Joyce got 76.7% of the vote in the Republican primary and then 63.4% in the general election.

Zetzer also ran as a Republican in 2014 in the Cleveland-based 11th Congressional District. He received 20.5% of the vote, losing by 59% to Democrat Marcia Fudge. He also came in last place in 2013 in the Shaker Heights City Council election.

When Zetzer announced in April that he was giving strong consideration to challenging Joyce next year, he said he was “living alone in a shack down by the river.”

In announcing his candidacy, Zetzer said he’s “been struggling with the same high living costs and low job prospects for most of my life. The innovations of free enterprise used to make America more affordable and upwardly mobile, but since the 1960s, price inflation and government controls have crushed gains in productivity and living standards, making the American Dream of home ownership, marriage, children and financial independence harder to achieve.”

On the Democratic side, Bill O’Neill, a former Ohio Supreme Court justice and 11th District Court of Appeals judge who’s twice lost races for the 14th District, and Allison Maranuk, who’s never held elected office, plan to run for the congressional seat next year.