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David Skolnick

Husted’s ‘improbable’ post

Hardly anyone, including Jon Husted, pictured him as a U.S. senator. But the Republican, who has eyed the Ohio governor’s seat for many years, just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Husted, lieutenant governor for the past six years, gave the vice-presidential nominating speech for J.D. Vance on July 17 at the Republican National Convention. When he got the appointment last week from Gov. Mike DeWine to succeed Vance in the Senate, Husted harkened back to that day at the RNC and said someone asked him at the time about filling that potential vacancy. “That seems so ...

Mapmaking for legislative districts in Ohio returns

Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission drew a congressional map four years ago that they anticipated would give their political party a 12-3 advantage in the U.S. House over Democrats. Instead, two toss-up districts – one with Akron as its largest city and another with Toledo – ...

Can Ohio Dems compete in ’26?

In the past two election cycles, Ohioans backed Republicans for the U.S. Senate who had never before run for office. In 2022, voters chose Republican J.D. Vance, best known at the time for writing the best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy” book, over Democrat Tim Ryan, a 20-year congressman. Two ...

SKOLNICK ON POLITICS: Rough political road ahead for Sherrod Brown

For the first time in 32 years, Democrat Sherrod Brown no longer holds public office. If you go back 50 years, Brown was an elected official for 48 of them, starting as a state representative, first elected in 1974, and after eight years, he spent another eight as Ohio’s secretary of ...

Ohio Republicans lavishly take care of their own

While it was a near certainty that the four incumbent Republican state legislators who represent the Mahoning Valley were going to win their elections last month, the state political party and GOP fundraising groups in the General Assembly left nothing to chance. Flush with money, the groups provided six-figure dollar amounts in in-kind contributions in just the three weeks before the Nov. 5 election to the legislators to ensure their victories. Those incumbents are state Sens. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, and Sandra O’Brien, R-Lenox, and state Reps. Tex Fischer, R-Boardman, and Nick ...

Ryan still has political bug

By his own account, Tim Ryan, a Democrat who represented the Mahoning Valley in the U.S. House for 20 years, has achieved his ideal professional-personal life balance. “I am so happy right now,” Ryan told me. “This is the happiest I’ve been personally and professionally in a long time so it’s hard to kind of change course.” Yet he still hears the siren call of politics. Ryan is making more money than he ever did as a lobbyist and working for a technology firm, gets to go on national television and write opinion pieces for Newsweek about his thoughts on politics. He has ...