Nobody Had Filed Against Jim Jordan

The Democratic nominee in Ohio's 4th Congressional District got into the race by accident.

Joshua Kolasinski runs a small business. He has three kids. He grew up in Toledo, spent twelve years working at ski resorts and national parks out west, and came home. Earlier this cycle he called his county Democratic chair with a simple question: who is running against Jim Jordan?

Nobody was. Nobody had filed.

Jim Jordan has held this seat since 2006. He chairs the House Judiciary Committee. He is one of the most recognizable members of Congress in the country. And in a district of roughly 800,000 Ohioans, he was on track to appear on the ballot unopposed until a guy who had never run for anything decided that should not happen.

I spent 75 minutes with Kolasinski this week for my show. I want to write about the part that has nothing to do with whether he wins.

He is not going to win easily and he knows it. Jordan took the old version of this district by 37 points in 2024. The redrawn district scores around 71 percent Republican. When I asked him about the new map, he did not spin it. He said the old district was oddly shaped, the new one is more compact, and neither version changes his math much because it was drawn Republican either way.

So why do it.

His answer was that most people think the corruption in Washington is unfixable, and that believing it is unfixable is itself the thing that keeps it in place. His platform follows from that: a total stock trading ban covering members and their spouses with actual enforcement, term limits that take effect immediately rather than phasing in decades from now, and a quarterly public town hall in district if he wins.

That last one is his central attack. He says Jordan has not held a public town hall open to constituents since 2017, and that his public appearances are scheduled early, with friendly crowds, and announced after the fact. That is his characterization and I have not verified it. But it is checkable, and it deserves checking, because if a sitting member of Congress has not taken unscreened questions from the people he represents in nine years, that is a story regardless of party.

I did not give him an easy hour. Six weeks before we spoke, the House passed a congressional stock trading ban. Every voting House Republican supported it. Almost every Democrat opposed it, largely over an attached voter ID provision and the bill's real weaknesses. I put that to him directly, because his entire pitch is about limiting congressional wealth and his own party had just voted against the only such bill ever to reach a House floor. He also described the Affordable Care Act as containing a public option, which it does not. I am going to say that publicly because I said I would hold everyone to the same standard.

Here is why I wrote this anyway.

Uncontested races are not a partisan problem. They are a structural one. When nobody files, there is no debate, no forum, no record to defend, and no reason for an incumbent of any party to show up anywhere uncomfortable. The seat stops being accountable and starts being owned. That happens in safe Democratic districts too, and it should bother you equally there.

Somebody has to be on the ballot. In Ohio's 4th, this year, it came down to one person making a phone call and then deciding he would do it himself.

I have invited Jim Jordan's campaign onto the show to make his own case. That invitation stands. It stands for every candidate in every race I cover.

Ohio's Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. Your congressional district may have changed. Check before you assume.

Full conversation: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-anyone-beat-jim-jordan-in-ohios-4th-district-joshua/id1626987640?i=1000789176453