Welcome to my diary series titled “Majority Savers”! I will run a new article every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday. The goal of this series is to highlight races that may make or break our current slender majorities in Congress. That means I will start more with incumbent Senators and House members until some primary elections are settled. If I have time, I will expand it to governors as well in critical swing states.
If you want to find my previous entries in this series, I recommend following me or searching for “Majority Savers” as a tag!
I have six ground rules behind the philosophy of this series. I’d ask you all to respect them as best you can, because these are taking me quite a long time to write. Here are my ground rules.
Today, I am focusing on a candidate that will have a tough time holding a gerrymandered Ohio House seat. If she wins, she will definitely help us keep the House majority intact. Please go below the fold to read all about former Senate Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, who is running for Ohio’s 13th district!
She was the Minority Leader of the Ohio State Senate before running for Ohio’s 13th district!
Candidate Background
I do not intend to write her entire biography, which you can read here. But I will make some points that I feel helped shape her to be a member of Congress for Ohio’s 13th district. Since she is new, biographical details are rather lacking.
- Both her father AND her mother have represented the Akron area in the State House and the State Senate. She is a second generation politician from the influential Sykes family. She has the connections to win this seat.
- She graduated from Kent State University with a psychology degree. She also graduated from the University of Florida with a law degree AND a public health degree. She also worked in the Summit County fiscal office before running for the state legislature. She seems like a very well rounded person!
- She was elected Minority Leader of the Ohio Senate between 2019 and 2021. That means she has the leadership capabilities of managing an entire caucus and will fit right in as a member of Congress!
Signature Issues
Emilia Sykes has yet to join Congress, so that means that she does not have a DW Nominate score. Her issue positions are kind of murky right now, and she doesn’t even have an issues page on her campaign website yet. She talks a lot about working across the aisle, which makes sense from such a marginal district. Someone more in tune with Ohio issues could definitely help me here!
- Domestic Violence: Her About page does mention that she has been renowned by both the Democratic Party and the GOP for her work on domestic violence issues in the state of Ohio. She is likely going to be a strong supporter of the Violence Against Women Act in Congress.
- Health Care: According to Wikipedia, she has earned the Emily’s List 2020 Rising Star Award. Emily’s List is a PAC that supports pro-choice women seeking elected office. She also has introduced a bill in the Ohio State House that would exempt feminine hygiene products from the sales tax.
- Gun Safety: She also has won the Gabby Giffords Rising Star Award, meaning she is likely an advocate of reducing gun violence as well. This would fit in with her work on reducing domestic violence as indicated above.
Elections History
Recent Elections —
2020 President: Joe Biden (D) 50.7%, TFG (R-inc) 47.9%
2020 House: Tim Ryan (D-inc) 52.5%, Christina Hagan (R) 44.9%
2022 Race Rating: Tossup
2022 PVI: EVEN
This district has been anchored primarily in northeastern Ohio throughout the decades. It has been given many different numbers, but the geography has remained consistent. In 2010 redistricting, the Akron area was largely merged with the Youngstown area when Ohio lost seats due to reapportionment. The district was intended to be a Democratic vote sink that Rep Tim Ryan would easily win to discourage him from running statewide. Obama easily won the old 13th district both times, as northeastern Ohio by Cleveland was been a source of Democratic strength for ages.
What is different now is that this area has been trending away from the Democratic Party in recent elections. Clinton narrowly carried the old 13th district 51-45% in 2016, and Biden even more narrowly carried the old 13th district 51%-47% in 2020. Trump has been able to convert the Rust Belt union vote (which this district is full of) to his side, and that has been devastating to our chances of holding this district. Emilia Sykes will have to court the union vote and the black vote to have a chance of winning come November.
Goodyear was founded in Akron. The district has roots in manufacturing and the union drive in response to employer abuses.
Political Tour of the District
There is pending litigation about all of the gerrymandering the Ohio redistricting commission (which is mostly made out of Republican elected officials) has done with the House map. These lines are being challenged, thus I was unable to find an accurate map of where the district is centered for the 2022 election. These lines may be radically different in 2024 or later this decade.
This district covers the Akron area, as well as the southernmost suburbs of Cleveland and parts of the Canton/Massillon area to the south. The seat was designed to give Biden the bare minimum victory (see above) required in a cynical attempt to comply with the Fair Districts amendment to the Ohio constitution.
Here’s where this race will be won in the 13th district.
- Akron, Akron, Akron: This city is the core of the Democratic vote in the district, and Emilia Sykes is from the city. It is absolutely critical that every voter that can be found in the city turns out and votes. There are a lot of black voters in this portion of the district, but turnout has been a problem in the past.
- Canton: The other rich source of votes comes from the city of Canton on the southern fringes of the district. This is where her challenger, Madison Gesiotto, is from. Sykes will need to overcome that home field advantage deficit and win over the city of Canton in order to be the next member of Congress from the 13th district.
Here’s where we need to keep the margins down, or we lose.
- Suburbs of Akron: these areas were blue when Obama was winning the state of Ohio, but the suburbs have shifted rapidly to the right during the Trump era. There are a couple of Cleveland suburbs that are still blue, but otherwise the goal is to stem the bleeding in these areas.
- Stark County other than Canton: this is deep red territory now, and the challenger Gesiotto will likely run up the score in the county as it is her home base. We will need to prevent that from happening somehow no matter how tall a task it may seem.
Activism — Help How You Can!
In Quarter 1, Sykes raised around $350k, which is a decent amount of money for someone who is not in Congress. Her challenger did not raise + self-funded nearly as much as her, which is a good sign that Sykes has grassroots support behind her. She will need an even bigger donor base as this is a race that will likely decide control of the House of Representatives.
Unfortunately, her challenger has more cash on hand available than she does. In fact, her challenger has DOUBLE the amount of cash available (not including dark money) as Sykes does — around $500k for Gesiotto versus around $250k for Sykes. Many of the people I will write about do NOT need more money, but Sykes is an exception. I would contribute as much as possible to her campaign if you want to see Speaker Pelosi stay in her chair.
DONATE TO EMILIA SYKES HERE
If social media is more your thing, you can follow Sykes on Twitter. She has 16.4K followers, which is a healthy amount — likely due to her being the State Senate Minority Leader in Ohio. Social media message amplification is paramount now that traditional media is dying. It’s an advantage the right wing has over us right now, and we ignore social media at our own risk.
You can also follow her on Facebook at EmiliaSykes or on Instagram at emilia_sykes!
Finally, here is a link to her campaign site, https://www.emiliasykesforcongress.com/, which is probably the best way to volunteer for her campaign at this time!
Thank you for taking the time to read about our challenger for the Ohio 13th district seat, State Senator and former Minority Leader Emilia Sykes! Hopefully this diary inspires you to help her in some way! It is definitely a difficult race to win, but with everything on the line now we cannot afford to ignore any truly competitive House race.
