Toledo Democratic Rep Marcy Kaptur (top), and Republican JR Majewski of Port Clinton (bottom), met with voters at opposite ends of the Fulton County Fairgrounds on September 3, 2022 . (Photos by Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer)

WAUSEON, OH - Toledo Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s congressional district has changed drastically since she was last reelected to Congress, but her campaign style remains much the same.

The Ninth Congressional District Kaptur has represented for the last decade stretches 114 miles along Lake Erie’s shoreline, capturing Toledo and parts of western Cuyahoga County that made it friendly for a Democrat. Now, though, the reshaped district extends to Ohio’s western border and no longer dips into Cuyahoga County. The district includes all or parts of Erie, Sandusky, Ottawa, Wood, Lucas, Fulton, Williams and Defiance counties.

And with her new district, Kaptur also faces a new challenger: Republican nominee J.R. Majewski, a Port Clinton nuclear industry veteran who has aligned himself with former President Donald Trump.

Over Labor Day weekend, the longest-serving woman in U.S. House of Representatives history wore cafeteria gloves and a straw hat with an American flag band as she handed crackers to veterans at a free bean soup luncheon at the Fulton County Fair, one of the largest in the demographically Republican district she was drawn into by GOP legislators who controlled Ohio’s redistricting process.

Kaptur hopes her nearly 40 years of congressional service, her authorship of legislation that established the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., the attention she’s devoted to regional issues like agriculture and Lake Erie water quality and the hours she’s spent meeting voters at parades, county fairs and fish fries will help her prevail in a congressional district that favored Trump’s re-election by a three-point margin.

“I feel very confident,” Kaptur said after spending more than an hour greeting veterans on the soup line and telling them how her district was reshaped to include their hometowns. “I think people know the level of our service. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to do our job, and I think the redrawing of the lines confuses people. And so one of our biggest challenges is letting people know where the district is.”

If Kaptur defeats Majewski, she will surpass former U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland as the longest-serving woman in the history of either congressional chamber.

This is the Ohio congressional district map being used for the 2022 election, with 15 U.S. House seats, down from 16 in the elections from 2012 through 2020.Rich Exner, cleveland.com

In the Cincinnati-area, Ohio’s longest-serving Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, Steve Chabot, faces a similar problem after redistricting.

He was drawn into a district that gave Biden an eight-point edge during the state’s redistricting process., which has spawned court challenges. The new configuration of the district Chabot represents includes all of Cincinnati, its eastern Hamilton County suburbs and all of Warren County. Chabot faces a well-funded challenge from Democratic Cincinnati City Council member Greg Landsman.

The non-partisan Cook Political report rates both Ohio races as “toss-ups,” while a recent Roll Call report listed Chabot among the nation’s 10 most vulnerable incumbents after redistricting. It left Kaptur off that list, claiming she “got a boost” because of her opponent’s extreme positions. Majewski – who first drew public attention after he painted his lawn as a giant Trump campaign sign – attended the Jan. 6 Trump rally in Washington, D. C., that preceded the Capitol Hill riot and has repeatedly distributed Q-Anon material.

While National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer of Minnesota projects a Majewski victory and claims “Marcy Kaptur hasn’t done anything in 30 years,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Sean Patrick Maloney of New York argues Kaptur has “a great record of results.”

“Marcy Kaptur obviously got a tougher district in redistricting, but you’re talking about the longest serving woman in the House of Representatives,” added Maloney. “That’s not by accident. If you spend five minutes with Marcy Kaptur, you’ll see she’s passionate about the economic challenges facing the Midwest and returning its manufacturing jobs ... She’s coming back to Congress.”

Kaptur highlights decades of experience

Kaptur had raised close to $1.8 million for her re-election bid as of June 30, while Majewski had collected $456,831. She had $1.7 million in her campaign account at the end of June, compared with $113,154 for Majewski.

In addition to her national work on the World War II memorial, Kaptur said she’s used her post as a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee to steer federal projects worth millions of dollars to Ohio. She’s secured money to dredge harbors along Lake Erie, invest in the steel industry and Great Lakes shipbuilding and she fought to continue constructing U.S. Army tanks in Lima when some of her colleagues tried to cancel the tank contracts.

“The seniority that I hold doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to the people of this region and this district,” said Kaptur. “And I know that if I were not to be there, many of the projects underway in this region would not be completed.”

As Kaptur handed out crackers at the fair, Mike Stamm of Waseon asked to pose for pictures with her and told her he’s delighted to be able to vote for her again. He recalled stirring bean soup with her when the event first started decades ago at a time when Kaptur’s district previously included Fulton County.

Bob Vasko of nearby Williams County said he talked to Kaptur over the years when he lived in Lucas County, and said she’s done a lot to keep jobs in the district and retain an Air National Guard base in Swanton, outside Toledo. He said he’s delighted that her district was drawn to include his new residence. He said it won’t be easy for her to win in the district “because there’s a lot of Trumpers out here,” but predicted “she still is going to carry the day.”

One of the other volunteers helping to serve the veterans, Nick Rubel of Assumption, wore a Majewski campaign ball cap and a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt – a conservative rallying cry meant to insult President Joe Biden – as he stirred a soup caldron. He said he backs Majewski because both are veterans, and he believes Majewski supports gun rights and free speech more than Democrats.

“She voted lockstep with Biden,” said Rubel, expressing doubts about Biden’s mental competence, concern about drugs and undocumented immigrants entering the United States across its southern border, and anger at Democrats who urged defunding police departments.

GOP congressional candidate JR Majewski is travelling the district where he's seeking office in this camper. (Photo by Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer)

At the other end of the fairgrounds, Majewski greeted voters in the county’s Republican party booth, wearing an American-flag themed polo shirt that bore the message “TRUMP: Keep America Great.” He posed for selfies in front of a cardboard Trump, and gave away yard signs and campaign ball caps. He refused to answer questions about the campaign or his stances on issues, but allowed a reporter to listen while he spoke to voters.

His campaign literature cites his service in the U.S. Air Force. It also pledges to “put Ohio first,” and protect the district’s jobs, children and senior citizens. It says he wants to stop inflation, “fight big government spending,” secure the nation’s border, lower taxes, reform the criminal justice system and “bring back American energy.” It highlights his work serving as assistant project manager when the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant’s reactor vessel head was replaced.

When one voter asked his stance on cannabis legalization, Majewski said it would be up to Ohio voters and the state’s legislature to make that decision. When another sought his views on keeping algal water contamination out of Lake Erie, Majewski told her he had ideas on the subject that he’s not yet prepared to release.

“I feel like I spent 20 years in the nuclear power industry solving very complex issues,” Majewski told her. “Cleaning an algae out of the lake is not very hard. It might be hard for Marcy and other elected officials.”

Many of those who accosted Majewski asked him about television ads running in the district that suggest he participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Majewski told them he took a group of elderly veterans to Washington, D.C., that day, but avoided the riot and did not enter the Capitol building. He said the FBI interviewed him about the incident and would have pressed charges if he did anything wrong.

“I would say that Marcy’s campaign activity on television is indicative of a politician that is scared to lose,,” Majewski told one supporter, saying his own ads will start running sometime after Labor Day. “She’s never had a challenger like me and the district has always been gerrymandered in favor of the Democrats.”

Rick Woodring of Matamora, who backs Majewski, opined that Kaptur “hasn’t done a whole lot” in the nearly 40 years she’s served in Congress, and described his candidate as “young blood,” with “a lot of good ideas.”

“I like that he’s a veteran who fought for his country and is knowledgeable on nuclear energy,” added Beverly Lung of Sylvania Township, who says she decided to volunteer for his campaign after hearing him speak.

Ron Dean, who runs a trucking company in Williams County, asked to post one of Majewski’s giant signs outside his business, saying he likes Majewski’s values and concern for veterans. Fred Pakulski of Liberty Center told the candidate he wants to put a Majewski yard sign on his lawn to “irritate my liberal neighbors.”

Chabot, Landsman neck-and-neck in fundraising battle

In the Cincinnati-area, Chabot’s Democratic challenger has raised almost as much as the incumbent as of mid-year.

Federal Election Commission reports that ran through the end of June showed Chabot had raised $1.3 million for his re-election bid, compared with $1.1 million for Landsman. Landsman had $815,202 in his campaign coffers, compared with $746,609 for Chabot. Both candidates say they’re mounting grassroots campaigns, visiting church festivals and having their supporters knock on thousands of doors in an effort to win in November.

“My goal is always to work as hard as I can for the people that I represent and bring results that’s going to make their lives better,” says Chabot. “That’s what I always focus on and that’s what I am doing now.”

Chabot was first elected to Congress in the 1994 Republican sweep that elevated Newt Gingrich to speaker of the House of Representatives. He left Congress for two years after losing his 2006 re-election bid to Democrat Steve Driehaus, and beat Driehaus to win back the job in 2008.

Chabot has served as chairman of the House Small Business Committee, and is among the most senior Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He is currently the top Republican in its Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia and Nonproliferation subcommittee, and would likely become its chair if Republicans take over Congress.

“I thing you’re gonna see Steve Chabot defend his seat,” said National Republican Congressional Committee’s Emmer. “In this environment, with his record, he’s gonna get reelected.”

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who represented an adjacent Cincinnati-area congressional district before becoming a senator, described Chabot’s reelection chances as “pretty good.” He says he frequently sees Chabot campaigning at events in the Cincinnati area.

“No-one can out-campaign Steve Chabot,” said Portman.

Chabot touts his fiscal conservativism, and has regularly introduced legislation to add a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He is also a vocal abortion foe who was the chief House of Representatives sponsor of a 2003 federal law that banned intact dilation and extraction abortions except in cases where the procedure is needed to save the mother’s life. Chabot and other abortion opponents call the procedure “partial birth abortion.” Chabot was also on the conference committee of House and Senate negotiators who hammered out final details of the CHIPS Act, which provided subsidies to the semiconductor industry that helped bring a $20 billion Intel plant to the Columbus area.

“My record, in many ways, speaks for itself and fortunately the people of the district are pretty aware of where I stand on on issues,” sais Chabot. “They know that my top goals are improving the economy and reducing inflation and keeping taxes as low as possible. Those are the economic issues that are so important to me, because they really do make so much difference to the people that I that I have the honor of representing.”

Landsman, a Cincinnati council member since 2017 who previously worked as a high school Spanish and remedial math teacher, says the new district includes around 240,000 voters who weren’t previously in Chabot’s district. He describes the incumbent as “deeply unpopular” among Democrats, independents and even some Republicans in the new district, whom he says “want their party back and an end to all this chaos and scary stuff that Trump and Chabot and others are doing.”

“Over the last couple of years, and this is true for a lot of Congressional Republicans, he has gone from being an innocuous backbencher, someone who didn’t really get much done but didn’t hurt folks, to being a real danger to democracy and core freedoms,” says Landsman, who decries Chabot for “anti-choice extremism,” and for voting against certifying Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election vote.

“He is in serious trouble, as he should be,” Landsman continues. “He is one of the few big lie anti-choice extremists that is in a competitive district.”

Maloney, of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says his organization enrolled Landsman in its “Red to Blue” program to channel resources to winnable districts.

“That district is much more vulnerable than the Republicans would care to admit,” says Maloney. “We have a very strong candidate. I think we’re going to surprise people there.”

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, predicts Landsman will win because “Chabot just hasn’t delivered for his district and I think Landman’s time on city council shows he will.”

Landsman, who served as executive director of a group that spearheaded establishment of a program that provides two years of preschool to Cincinnati three- and four-year-olds before joining the city’s council, said the city’s voters know he’s “a very pragmatic, proven leader who has a track record of getting really big things done in broad coalitions that have helped children and families here at home.”

“I have helped get wages up, rents down, and have ensured that our investments in public safety mean that our families are safe,” said Landsman.

Landsman says the fact that most Ohio’s congressional districts have been drawn to favor Republicans is “part of a larger assault on our democracy,” and said nobody should be stacking the deck in congressional districts, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats. He says the congressional district where he’s running should logically encompass all of Hamilton County, and Republicans who controlled the redistricting process instead cut it in two and included GOP-leaning Warren County to help Chabot.

“The biggest thing I hear from voters, is they want an and to the chaos and extremism,” says Landsman. “There is a coming together of Democrats and independents and Republicans to say, ‘Hey, we have got to be done with this craziness and elect folks who are going to uphold elections, focus on actually getting costs down, be pragmatic adults and lead without being beholden to any party and certainly not to the chaos of Trump.”

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