Filing closed Wednesday for Ohio’s March 17 primary. Candidates file with the county that makes up the largest proportion of their district rather than with the state, so a list of contenders can be found on county election sites. Below is a rundown of the House races to watch for in the primary and November general election.
OH-01: GOP Rep. Steve Chabot is arguably the state’s most vulnerable House member a year after he won reelection 51-47 in a suburban Cincinnati seat that backed Donald Trump by a similar 51-45 margin. While there was some speculation that Chabot could retire or face a primary opponent, the congressman is running again without any intra-party opposition.
The two Democrats competing to take on Chabot are former healthcare executive Kate Schroder and former Air Force pilot Nikki Foster, who sought a dark red state House seat last cycle. Schroder has the support of Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, who is her old boss, while VoteVets is backing Foster. Schroder ended September with a $319,000 to $100,000 cash-on-hand lead over Foster.
Chabot reported having $403,000 to spend, but his campaign finances have been in turmoil since late summer, when the FEC sent a letter asking why the congressman's first-quarter fundraising report was belatedly amended to show $124,000 in receipts that hadn't previously been accounted for. From there, a bizarre series of events unfolded.
First, Chabot's longtime consultant, Jamie Schwartz, shuttered his firm, called the Fountain Square Group, and allegedly disappeared. Then Schwartz's father, Jim Schwartz, told reporters that despite appearing as Chabot's treasurer on his FEC filings for many years, he had in fact never served in that capacity. Chabot's team was certainly bewildered, because it issued a statement saying, "As far as the campaign was aware, James Schwartz, Sr. has been the treasurer since 2011." Evidently there's a whole lot the campaign wasn't aware of.
The elder Schwartz also claimed of his son, "I couldn't tell you where he's at" because "he's doing a lot of running around right now." Well, apparently, he’d run right into the arms of the feds. Earlier this month, local news station Fox19 reported that Jamie Schwartz had turned himself in to the U.S. Attorney's office, which, Fox19 says, has been investigating the matter "for a while."
Adding to the weirdness, it turned out that Chabot had paid Schwartz's now-defunct consultancy $57,000 in July and August for "unknown" purposes. Yes, that's literally the word Chabot's third-quarter FEC report used to describe payments to the Fountain Square Group no fewer than five times. (Remember how we were saying the campaign seems to miss quite a bit?)
We still don't know what those payments were for, or what the deal was with the original $124,000 in mystery money that triggered this whole saga. Chabot himself has refused to offer any details, insisting only that he's been the victim of an unspecified "financial crime." Chabot’s Democratic rivals have used the mess to attack him as “corrupt,” but the real fallout will only come if and when investigators announce their findings—and any charges.
OH-03: Four-term Rep. Joyce Beatty faces a well-funded Democratic primary challenge from former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau advisor Morgan Harper in this safely blue Columbus seat. Harper, who is 36 and a first-time candidate, has contrasted herself against Beatty, who is 69 and has held elected office since 1999, by calling for generational change. Beatty has argued in turn that Harper hasn’t presented any workable plans and is raising “false hope.”
OH-10: Veteran GOP Rep. Mike Turner won reelection last year 56-42 in a Dayton-based seat that backed Trump 51-44, and it doesn’t look like Democrats will be seriously targeting him. One of Turner’s two Democratic foes, attorney Desiree Tims, announced her campaign in August but raised just $42,000 through the end of the following month. The other Democrat, Alzheimer's researcher Eric Moyer, opened a fundraising account just after Thanksgiving but hasn’t attracted much attention yet.
OH-12: Republican Rep. Troy Balderson won his first full term last year 51-47 last year, and he may be vulnerable again in this 53-42 Trump seat in the northern Columbus area. Balderson’s main Democratic foe looks like businesswoman Alaina Shearer, who entered the race in late October. The other Democrat who filed, nurse practitioner Jenny Bell, reported raising less than $5,000 during the previous quarter.
OH-13: Former GOP state Rep. Christina Hagan entered the race to take on veteran Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan just ahead of the filing deadline, and it doesn’t look like she’ll face any serious primary opposition. Ryan never had trouble holding this Mahoning Valley seat even after it moved from 63-35 Obama to 51-45 Clinton, but this cycle could be tougher. Ryan spent six months on failed bid for president that drained most of his resources, and he had just $41,000 on-hand at the end of September.
However, Hagan doesn’t start with much of a geographic base in this seat. While about a quarter of her old 50th State House District is located in Ryan's seat, that portion only makes up about 4% of the 13th District's total population. Hagan ran for the neighboring 16th District last year and lost the primary to now-Rep. Anthony Gonzalez 53-41.
While the 13th District lurched to the right in 2016, it moved back a bit last cycle. According to calculations by Republican election analyst Michael Dawson, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Richard Cordray carried the seat 56-41 even as he was losing statewide 50-47.