Author: Brian Ball

Ohio Reps Fault Biden for Bypassing Congress Ahead of Afghanistan Withdrawal

Brian Ball

GOP congressman said President Joe Biden’s decision in early June to dismiss a mandate to confer with lawmakers before withdrawing from Afghanistan contributed to the chaotic withdrawal that officially ended Tuesday.

The Ohio Star contacted the 11 Republican representatives to react to a report from JustTheNews.com that Biden had waived a congressional mandate to receive a Pentagon risk assessment to counter-terrorism operations and the safety to American personnel stationed in Afghasistan to Congress before U.S. troop levels fell below 2,000.

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Drive to Legalize Recreational Marijuana in Ohio Begins as Ballot Panel Approves Petition

Brian Ball

The Ohio Ballot Board has approved an initiative petition drive seeking to legalize marijuana for adults 21 years old and older, clearing the way for supporters to collect signatures for presentation to the Ohio General Assembly later this year.

The five-member panel certified the proposed “Act to Control and Regulate Adult-Use Cannabis” in a 5-0 votes as meeting the one-law standard for proposed ballot measures.

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Ohio Politicians Pay Their Respects to Navy Medic Maxton William Soviak Who Died in Kabul Terrorist Attack

Brian Ball

U.S. Senators Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, OH-9, have reacted with grief and tributes to the Sandusky area Navy hospital corpsman killed on Aug. 26 at the Kabul international airport as the American military continues to withdraw troops and civilians from Afghanistan.

The military named sailor Maxton William Soviak as one of 13 American military personnel killed in two terrorist attacks at a hotel and nearby gate of the Kabul airport where American forces and civilians are getting airlifted out in the wake of the Taliban takeover of the southwestern Asian country.

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Ohio GOP Candidates for U.S. Senate, Cincinnati Congressman Rip Biden After Afghan Blasts Kill Marines, Navy Medic

Brian Ball

The deaths of at least 13 American service men and women and 75 civilians in Kabul on Thursday has again sparked even mor criticism of President Joe Biden’s leadershp from several candidates for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate in Ohio as well as a Cincinnati congressman..

Three candidates – J.D. Vance, Mike Gibbons and Jane Timkemin in statements sent to The Ohio Star – called for Biden’s resignation 10 days after the Taliban rolled into Kabul and Afghani provincial capitals as the U.S. military scrambled to evacuate its personnel as well and U.S. and select Afghani civilians.

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Vaccine Protests Begin in Ohio as House Bill 248 Gets Testimony, ‘Pause’

Brian Ball

  COLUMBUS, Ohio – About 400 or more protesters lined the Third Street stretch of Capitol Square downtown Tuesday morning as a Ohio House of Representatives committee prepared to hear more testimony on the proposed Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act that seeks to ban businesses from mandating workers to get vaccinated as a condition of employment. Tea Party Patriots Action and affiliates organized the protest as the first of several planned across the country as well as two more sets in Ohio communities during the next five days. Protesters held signs such as, “No Forced Vaccines,” “Yes to Medical Freedom,” “Medical Freedom is a Human Right.” and “No More DeWine,” the latter a reference to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. As protesters voiced support for House Bill 248, legislators on the House Health Committee began gathering around 11 a.m. for what became a four-hour marathon to hear opponents and proponents of the legislation present views on the legislation inspired by, but not specifically targeting, the COVID-19 vaccination that about 60 percent of eligible Ohio adults and teens have received. But fear of employer-mandated COVID vaccination spurred first-term State Representative Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester Township) to introduce the legislation in early April. By…

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Blystone Gubernatorial Campaign ‘Imploding Because Things Aren’t Being Done Right,’ Says Former Co-Campaign Manager; ‘Disrespectful’ Candidate, Disorganization Prompt Staff Departures

Brian Ball
Joe Blystone

The campaign of Joe Blystone to take the GOP gubernatorial nomination from incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine has lost at least 15 county and regional leaders and a couple of headquarters staff since early July, many due to a what those leaving describe as a disorganized campaign and a disrespect candidate.

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Renacci Asks Ohio Attorney General, Secretary of State to Investigate Sources of DeWine Campaign Cash

Brian Ball

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci has asked Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Secretary of State Frank LaRose to open another line of investigation into the FirstEnergy Corp. public corruption scandal and incumbent GOP Governor Mike DeWine’s re-election campaign.

Renacci transmitted the joint letter to the Republican statewide officeholders Monday late afternoon in the latest attack attempting to more closely tie DeWine and the corruption scheme from the House Bill 6 passed in July 2019. FirstEnergy pushed the legislation  to allow it to tap Ohio electric customers both inside its service territory and that of other investor-owned electric utilities to financially support its two old nuclear power plants located along the Lake Erie shores to the tune of $1.1 billion.

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Ohio U.S. Senate Hopeful Timken Joins Calls for Biden to Resign, Adds Sacking of Secretaries of State, Defense and Joint Chiefs Chair

Brian Ball

U.S. Senate candidate Jane Timken joined several Republicans calling for President Joe Biden to resign in the aftermath of the chaotic withdrawal of American troops and diplomatic personnel from Afghanistan.

U.S. Representative Jeff Van Drew, (R-NJ-2) began the call for Biden’s resignation Sunday evening as video streaming from broadcast news outlets showed Afghanis crowding U.S military air transports, desperate to leave with the fall of the Afghani capital of Kabul as well as provincial capitals to the extreme Islamists known as the Taliban.

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Ohio GOP Senate Candidate Mike Gibbons Calls for Resignation of President Biden After Fall of Afghanistan

Brian Ball

The rapid collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban and miscalculations during the disorderly withdrawal of American Troops has led U.S. Senate candidate Mike Gibbons to call for the resignation of President Biden.

Congressional Republicans from Ohio also joined the widespread condemnation of the Biden administration’s poor handling of the withdrawal of American troops nearly 20 years after President George W. Bush directed the invasion of the west Asian country in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2011 terror attacks by Islamic extremists trained in that west-central Asian country.

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Feds Nix Ohio Plan to Tying Expanded Medicare Benefits to Work, Training, ‘Engagement’

Brian Ball
Inside DMV, people standing in line

  The Biden administration has squelched a fledgling Ohio program requiring those in their prime working years receiving Medicaid health coverage to get a job to remain covered. Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMMS), on Wednesday withdrew approval of a pilot program the Trump administration had approved in March 2019 that would have required able-bodied Medicaid health insurance ages 19-50 to work unless they were attending school, getting job-training, taking care of family members, or doing other “community engagement” for least 80 hours per month in order to receive the medical benefits. Implementation of the program, set to begin in January had been put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic. But Brooks-LaSure’s 23-page letter to the Ohio Department of Medicaid cited a litany of potential lingering effects of the pandemic as the reason for withdrawing the waiver granted 17 months ago altogether. “Uncertainty regarding the current crisis and the pandemic’s aftermath, and the potential impact on economic opportunities (including job skills training, work and other activities used to satisfy the community engagement requirement), and access to transportation and affordable child care, have greatly increased the risk that implementation…

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Carey Set for Second Sprint of 2021 Special Election Even as 2022 Elections, Redistricting Loom

Brian Ball
Mike Carey

GOP congressional candidate Mike Carey has jumped right back into campaign mode after besting 10 other candidates on August 3 in a three-month sprint to become the Republican nominee to keep Ohio’s 15th District red with nearly 37 percent of the vote.

The second sprint began the next day, as the November 2 special election to replace five-term Congressman Steve Stivers – and the possibility of May 2022 primary – loom, even as the boundaries of the conservative district covering all or parts of 12 counties could change the political landscape.

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DeWine Stresses Vaccine, Informed Choice v. COVID-19 Strain Even as Some Businesses Press Masks, Social Distancing

Brian Ball
Gov. Mike DeWine and vaccines

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) has stepped up his calls for unvaccinated Ohioans to get a COVID-19 shot amid the rising threat presented by the Delta strain that has quickly spread throughout the state since May.

He said individuals must decide for themselves what precautions to take given what he said is the growing danger Delta presents.

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Ex-PUCO Chairman Randazzo Added to Ohio AG’s Racketeering Lawsuit in FirstEnergy Case

Brian Ball

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has expanded a civil racketeering lawsuit tied to the federal FirstEnergy Corp. public corruption case to include the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and two fired executives of the Akron, Ohio-based electric utility.

The addition of energy consultant and attorney Sam Randazzo, former FirstEnergy CEO Charles Jones, and Vice President Michael Dowling comes just a few weeks after the utility cut a deal with federal prosecutors where it admitted its role in the scandal and paid a $230 million fine in a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice.

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Ohio Businesses Optimistic After Court Upholds End of Bonus Pandemic Cash

Brian Ball

Trade associations representing Ohio’s restaurants and other small businesses have lauded a July 29 decision in Franklin County Common Pleas Court upholding Governor Mike DeWine’s authority to not spend federal funding that gave those unemployed – as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic – a $300 weekly bonus to their state unemployment benefits.

But the attorney representing the Cleveland area plaintiffs in the case said a hearing on an appeal of Judge Michael Holbrook’s decision to end the payments effective June 26 could get heard in the Franklin County Court of Appeals as early as this week.

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Ohio’s Senator Portman Boosts Prospects of Infrastructure Bill on Squawk Box, Credits Trump for ‘Stirring Up Debate’

Brian Ball

U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) hopes to get the $550 billion Infrastructure & Investment Act legislation before the full Senate next week after the proposed bipartisan legislation recently cleared the committee on a 20-0 vote.

Portman speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box show on Tuesday, lauded the legislation as a way to boost economic productivity while avoiding a rollback of the Trump administration’s signature tax cuts from 2017.

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Ohio Republican Party Has Given DeWine Re-election Campaign $870k Since January 1, Despite Two Announced Gubernatorial Primary Challengers

Brian Ball

The Ohio Republican Party (ORP) has given the 2022 re-election campaign of Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) $870,968 since January 1, 2021, despite the fact that DeWine has two announced primary challengers for the Republican gubernatorial nomination–former Congressman Jim Renacci (R-OH) and Joe Blystone.

Recent filings by the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee State Candidate Fund with the campaign finance division of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office show the party gave the 2022 re-election campaign of Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted a $500,000 payment on July 30 without the approval of the party’s fiscal review committee or a formal endorsement of the governor’s campaign against rivals for the GOP nomination.

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Ohio Republican Party Treasurer Johnson Defends GOP Chair in Accounting Tiff, Bashes ‘Malcontents’ Calling for Expansion of Audit Back to 2017

Brian Ball

  COLUMBUS, Ohio – The treasurer of the Ohio Republican Party (ORP) has defended top management’s handling of the political organization’s financial statements against concerns the policies and procedures have created risk for improper accounting. David W. Johnson, the 32-year incumbent Columbiana County GOP chairman now in his second term as the Ohio GOP’s treasurer, dismissed allegations of poor accounting practices in need of closer scrutiny as “built of exaggerated and unsubstantiated, even false claims” from fiscal review committee members Mark Bainbridge of Upper Arlington and  Denise Verdi of Timberlake and audit committee member Laura Rosenberger of Springfield in series of emails exchanged with GOP management since May. Johnson did not identify with specificity which allegations of poor accounting practices made in a series of emails sent by Bainbridge, Verdi, and Rosenberger to ORP Chairman Bob Paduchik in May and June that were “exaggerated and unsubstantiated and even false claims.” In an article published on Thursday titled, “Ohio GOP Central Committee Members Challenge Chairman Paduchik on $638k Write-Off in 2021 and $1.7 Million Deduction to Equity in 2017,” The Ohio Star reported: The Ohio Star has obtained internal emails exchanged between three of the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee 66…

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Ex-GOP Chair, U.S. Senate Candidate Jane Timken Dodges Questions in Ohio GOP Accounting Mess

Brian Ball
Jane Timken For U.S. Senate

  U.S. Senate Candidate Jane Timken has refused to answer questions about the health of Ohio Republican Party’s financial records during her tenure as the chairwoman of the State Central Committee. Revelations of pressure within the Ohio Republican Party (ORP) to clean up the organization’s accounting practices and its leadership’s resistance to expand the scope of an audit of the state GOP surfaced in an exclusive story published on Thursday by The Ohio Star. Timken, the party chairwoman from January 2017 to mid-February of this year, though, has emerged as a central figure in the accounting issues raised by two members of the GOP board’s fiscal review committee and another on the state GOP’s audit committee as Timken led the party as a 2017 report identified the lack of proper accounting procedures as well as the need for a full audit of the party financial statements that hadn’t occurred for at least 12 years at that point. Timken, who announced in February her candidacy for the GOP nomination to succeed retiring U.S. Senator Rob Portman in 2022, has not returned email and phone messages from The Star sent through her campaign’s press officer seeking her explanation for the books now…

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Ohio GOP Central Committee Members Challenge Chairman Paduchik on $638k Write-Off in 2021 and $1.7 Million Deduction to Equity in 2017

Brian Ball

Lingering accounting issues dating back at least four years have pitted three members of the Ohio Republican Party’s Central Committee against Ohio Republican Party (ORP) Chairman Robert Paduchik over the scope of the ongoing audit of the ORP’s financial records – the first complete audit of the party’s finances in at least 16 years.

The Ohio Star has obtained internal emails exchanged between three of the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee 66 members – Audit Committee member Laura Rosenberger and Fiscal Review Committee members Mark Bainbridge and Denise Verdi – and Chairman Paduchik that discuss the need to improve the financial reporting practices of the ORP to accounting industry and government regulatory reporting standards, starting with an expansion of the years covered by a standard audit just now getting underway.

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Renacci Calls for Full Investigation of All Sources of FirstEnergy Contributions to DeWine Campaign, Including Ohio Republican Party

Brian Ball

  MEDINA, Ohio – Republican gubernatorial challenger Jim Renacci has asked for a full investigation of the flow of FirstEnergy Corp.’s political contributions into the 2018 campaign of Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) in the wake of the Akron-based electric utility’s $230 million settlement of public bribery charges with the Department of Justice last week. That probe, he said, should include a full investigation of the financial records of the Ohio Republican Party. Renacci held a press conference early Tuesday afternoon on the public square in Medina to call for DeWine to fully disclose any direct and indirect contributions made to his campaign by FirstEnergy as part of the electric utility’s bid to get the House Bill 6 legislation DeWine signed two years ago. That legislation, now mostly rescinded, would have charged electric utility customers statewide for the upkeep of the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants along the Lake Erie shoreline owned by a former FirstEnergy subsidiary. Renacci charged DeWine’s campaign coffers may have benefitted as much as $5 million from FirstEnergy, which was named as the central player in the $60 million bribery case still under investigation. “DeWine has contributed to a culture of corruption where sweetheart deals and…

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Ohio Restaurant Association Seeks More Federal Aid Amid Cost Pressures, Labor Shortage

Brian Ball
Ginger man with a white shirt and tan apron on

The Ohio Restaurant Association has called for another round of federal aid to assist restaurant owners and workers nationwide as labor shortages and higher supply costs slow the industry’s recovery from restrictions in placed during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The trade group’s call for a  $60 billion replenishment of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund comes as food-service operators struggle with higher costs and labor shortages.

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GOP Ohio Gubernatorial Candidate Renacci Blasts Gov. DeWine in Expanding FirstEnergy Scandal

Brian Ball
Jim Renacci

  COLUMBUS, Ohio – FirstEnergy Corp.’s agreement this week to pay a $230 million fine in the ongoing federal investigation into an Ohio Statehouse bribery scheme has generated more criticism from GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci who is seeking to take the 2022 Republican nomination from incumbent Governor Mike DeWine. The Akron-based electric utility on Thursday agreed to the massive fine after admitting it paid an energy consultant – who DeWine later selected to be chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio – $4.3 million to help formulate House Bill 6, a 2019 piece of legislation supporting a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout of two nuclear power plants a FirstEnergy spinoff owns. That legislation passed after an alleged $60 million bribery scheme that funneled cash to the election campaigns of various state legislators through a so-called “dark money” political action committee, or PAC. FirstEnergy has now claimed it paid consultant Sam Randazzo the money for helping craft the legislation and in anticipation of further assistance when he took over as PUCO chair in February 2019. Former Congressman Jim Renacci, one of two announced opponents for the GOP nomination, on Friday said the unwinding scandal implicates DeWine for “helping create a…

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GOP Gubernatorial Challengers Blast President’s Cincinnati Visit- Renacci Says Biden ‘Has a Close Friend in Mike DeWine,’ Blystone Says ‘Infrastructure Bill Is a Joke’

Brian Ball

  The two challengers to incumbent Governor Mike DeWine’s bid for the GOP nomination in 2022 had harsh words in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s ‘town hall’ political event in Cincinnati Wednesday night. But it wasn’t just complaints about Biden and his left-of-center agenda. Biden covered familiar territory during the 75-minute show hosted by CNN, touching on the renewed vigor of the Delta strain of the COVID-19 virus, economic issues, and whether the U.S. Senate should dump the procedural filibuster rule that requires a super-majority of votes before a bill can move to final debate and vote. The inability of Democrats to gain cloture on several Biden-backed legislation – in particular the $1.2 trillion transportation, utilities and broadband infrastructure bill – came up yesterday at the forum and on the Senate floor as Republicans narrowly blocked the bill as work continues on how to pay for the bridges, roads, public transit, and other projects. A separate $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” that adds child care, Medicare expansion, and climate change funding to the mix also has stalled because of what conservatives have branded pork-barrel spending and programs advancing left-wing programs. One project Biden identified as a potential beneficiary of the…

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GOP Senate Candidates Pummel Biden on Inflation, Infrastructure in Wake of ‘Town Hall’ Talk

Brian Ball
Biden Town Hall

  President Joe Biden took to the stage at Mount St. Joseph University at 8 p.m. Wednesday before an intimate audience comprised of hand-selected, loyal Democrats and disgruntled Republicans to run the gamut of issues from the surge of the Delta strain of COVID-19 and the proposed federal infrastructure bill to economic issues such as inflation concerns and one restaurant owners’ inability to find workers. Biden singled out those in their 20s and 30s as well as skeptics in poor, minority communities to get immunized. “We have a pandemic (among) those who haven’t gotten the vaccine,” He noted his administration has stepped up efforts with ads featuring prominent athletes and entertainers urging reluctant Americans to get jabbed. The President downplayed the risk that massive federal spending has played in igniting inflation. “The good news is the economy is picking up significantly,” he said. “… Prices are up now but it will not be long term.” Mike Gibbons, a Cleveland businessman and GOP candidate to running to replace retiring U.S. Senator Rob Portman, said unchecked federal spending from Congress and Biden has fueled inflation, which he called a “hidden tax” on Ohioans. “Families and businesses alike are negatively impacted by rising…

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U.S. House Hopeful Carey Sets Tele-Rally with Trump, Fairs as GOP Primary Hits Final Stretch

Brian Ball
Mike Carey

U.S. House of Representatives candidate Mike Carey enters the last two weeks of his campaign for the GOP nomination to represent Ohio’s 15th congressional district playing his Trump card in a telephonic rally set for the early evening of July 20.

Carey, a leading contender to replace retired U.S. Representative Steve Stivers, will feature President Donald Trump as the headliner for the hour-long telephonic rally 14 days before the Aug. 3 special election. Those wishing to listen in to the call can sign up and receive instructions to access the rally at https://careyforcongress.com/trumpcall/.

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Ohio Restaurant Association to Laud Husted for COVID Work at Virtual Awards Ceremony

Brian Ball
Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted

The trade association representing Ohio’s restaurant industry will recognize Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted as its Outstanding Public Official in fashioning COVID-19 policy at the onslaught of the pandemic 16 months ago.

Ohio Restaurant Association President and CEO John Barker credited Husted for working with an industry group formed to create an effective response to the  crisis with state  health advisers and others that maximized the flow of food to the public in the initial weeks and formulating a policy allowing further opening two months later.

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Ohio Budget Revives Brownfield Remediation Program to Spur Redevelopment

Brian Ball

The recently enacted state government budget will create a $500 million brownfield remediation fund designed to spur the cleanup and redevelopment of former industrial sites and other environmentally damaged properties throughout the state.

A last-minute addition to the two-year, $74 billion operating budget Governor Mike DeWine signed on June 30 revives the Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund (CORF) program shut down under former Governor John Kasich in 2013. The reconstituted program will offer $350 million over two years toward cleaning up and revitalizing brownfields and another $150 million for the demolition of vacant and abandoned properties in Ohio communities.

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Renacci Likens DeWine to Democrat Governors Cuomo, Newsom in Latest Campaign Ad

Brian Ball

GOP gubernatorial contender Jim Renacci has stepped up his campaign against incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine in a social media ad likening the governor’s language and actions during the COVID-19 pandemic to prominent Democrat governors Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsome of California.

The Renacci for Governor campaign’s 30-second ad this week calls DeWine “Democrat DeWine” for the way the incumbent handled the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

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Ohio Businessman Gibbons Vows Aggressive Campaign in Second Run for U.S Senate

Brian Ball

  Cleveland businessman Mike Gibbons spent part of his Independence Day weekend walking in a couple of parades with his wife Diane in his hometown of Parma and another nearby community, hoping to shore up support in the Ohio county with the most Republican voters so as not to lose on his home turf as he did in 2018 when he last sought the GOP nomination for U.S. Senator. And he’s hopeful he can win enough of a plurality in the rest of the state to advance to the general election in November 2022. Gibbons sat down for an interview in a spartan flex office building near the Columbus suburb of Hilliard as he prepares to battle against at least four other viable contenders for the GOP nomination. Two-term Sen. Rob Portman has held the seat since January 2011 and earlier this year announced he would not seek a third term. Like Timken and several other 2022 GOP contenders for the Senate, Gibbon has never held elective office, and that’s his point. He built a real estate and investment banking businesses over the last few decades and is still wanting to put that experience and expertise in public service. “Until…

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