Why Two Ohio Libertarians Want to Take Republican Votes Specifically Heading Into the 2026 Midterms

By Radell Lewis, Host of Purple Political Breakdown

Ohio's May 5, 2026 primary is roughly a week away, and a quiet but useful realignment is forming on the right side of the spectrum. On a recent double feature episode of Purple Political Breakdown, I spoke with two libertarian write-in candidates running for U.S. House seats in two very different parts of the state. Both of them said the same thing in different words: they are running to take votes off Republican incumbents, not to play spoiler to Democrats.

I want to be direct about the editorial framing of this piece. I do not approach Ohio politics from a both-sides posture. The Republican Party in this state owns the largest political corruption scandal in Ohio history, owns the rollback of a constitutionally adopted cannabis law, and owns a ten-term incumbent in OH-5 who has reportedly stopped engaging directly with constituents. These libertarian candidates are interesting precisely because they understand that, and because they are positioning themselves as an alternative for conservative-leaning voters who will not vote Democratic but who are no longer willing to defend the GOP either.

The OH-1 Candidate: An Auto Mechanic With a Story

Jason Stoops is an auto mechanic from Wilmington in Clinton County. He filed late, made the decision in early February, and admits he's a plan B candidate. What makes his story relevant beyond the novelty is the lived experience of small-business retaliation he describes. According to Stoops, after running against his local incumbent administration, the city spent approximately ten thousand dollars of taxpayer money investigating him over Facebook posts. He also describes a zoning reversal on a downtown property he had purchased years earlier, where one administration confirmed his grandfathered status and a successor administration cited an Ohio Supreme Court case to issue a stop work order.

Stoops is explicit that his pitch is not aimed at Democratic voters. He told me he sees Ohio Republicans defaulting to MAGA talking points and co-signing federal overreach, and his goal is to provide a libertarian off-ramp for conservative voters who reject what the party has become.

The OH-5 Candidate: A Spoiler With a Mission

Mike Beloff, a write-in candidate from Galleon, is running explicitly as a spoiler in Ohio's Fifth Congressional District against ten-term incumbent Bob Latta. Latta has served in Congress since December 2007, the seat his father held from 1959 to 1989. Beloff said directly on the show that he has no opposition to either of the Democrats running in the OH-5 primary because neither is a career politician, and his sole strategic objective is to peel five to ten percent of the Republican vote and end Latta's tenure.

Beloff's platform is more aggressive than Stoops's. He proposes release on recognizance for all nonviolent crimes as a baseline bail reform, arguing that the current cash bail system functions as a pipeline into a prison industrial complex. He calls for restoring Ohio Medicaid to a single-payer model, criticizing what he describes as the privatization of the system that has left recipients unable to access providers who are out of network. And he hammered Governor Mike DeWine for the December 2025 signing of Senate Bill 56, which bans intoxicating hemp products and which DeWine then line-item vetoed to strip out the carve-out that would have allowed regulated THC beverages to remain legal until late 2026.

The Backdrop: This Is a Republican Governance Crisis

Both candidates anchor their critiques in a public record that is hard to dismiss. The FirstEnergy and House Bill 6 scandal remains the largest political corruption case in Ohio history, and it is a Republican Party scandal. Federal prosecutors established that FirstEnergy funneled roughly sixty million dollars through dark money groups to install Larry Householder, the Republican Speaker of the Ohio House, and pass a billion-dollar bailout of failing nuclear and coal plants in 2019. Householder is serving a twenty-year federal prison sentence. The Ohio Public Utilities Commission ordered FirstEnergy utilities to pay roughly two hundred fifty million dollars in November 2025 for the violations. The state criminal trial of former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and former senior vice president Mike Dowling ended in a hung jury and mistrial, with retrial scheduled for September 28, 2026. The coal subsidies that survived in HB6 cost Ohio ratepayers more than five hundred million dollars before they were finally killed in August 2025.

That is not a partisan talking point. That is the public ledger, and it sits squarely on one party's record.

Why This Matters

The libertarian challenge in Ohio is small in vote share but meaningful in signal. When auto mechanics and self-described drunk uncles are running write-in campaigns specifically to bleed Republican incumbents, the GOP should be paying attention. Jason Stoops and Mike Beloff are not interested in being the alternative for everyone. They are interested in being the alternative for the conservative voter who is done with the current Republican Party but who, for whatever reason, cannot pull a Democratic lever. That is a narrow but real demographic, and in close races it can move outcomes.

The 2026 midterms are not just about which party wins seats. They are about whether the Republican Party in Ohio is going to be held accountable for what it has built over the last decade, and whether voters who used to fall in line are going to keep doing so. Stoops and Beloff are answering that question with their candidacies.

Listen to the full conversations on Purple Political Breakdown: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/can-two-libertarians-actually-break-ohios-gop-stranglehold/id1626987640?i=1000763569162

Sources:

• Wikipedia, Bob Latta congressional service record (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Latta)
• GovTrack, Rep. Robert Latta tenure and voting record (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/robert_latta/412256)
• Ballotpedia, Ohio's 5th Congressional District election 2026 (https://ballotpedia.org/Bob_Latta)
• Wikipedia, Ohio FirstEnergy bribery scandal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal)
• Common Cause Ohio, House Bill 6 Scandal Timeline (https://www.commoncause.org/ohio/resources/a-cycle-of-corruption-a-timeline-of-the-householder-hb6-scandal/)
• Utility Dive, Ohio PUC orders FirstEnergy utilities to pay 250.7M (https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ohio-puc-firstenergy-bribery-hb-6/806025/)
• Columbus Underground, FirstEnergy / HB6 Trial mistrial coverage (https://columbusunderground.com/firstenergy-hb6-trial-continues-to-drag-out-in-courts-cm1/)
• Ohio Capital Journal, DeWine signs intoxicating hemp ban into law (https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/12/19/ohio-gov-mike-dewine-signs-intoxicating-hemp-ban-new-marijuana-regulations-into-law/)
• Statehouse News Bureau, Intoxicating hemp ban under SB 56 (https://www.statenews.org/government-politics/2025-12-19/intoxicating-hemp-to-be-illegal-in-ohio-under-bill-signed-by-dewine-including-beverages)
• WKYC, Householder and Borges convictions upheld by Sixth Circuit (https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/crime/larry-householder-matt-borges-bribery-convictions-upheld-court-of-appeals-hb6-firstenergy-scheme-conspiracy-ohio-house-speaker/95-9551805d-0c83-4d76-bf8e-da9143fba87b)
• WKYC / AP, FirstEnergy HB6 scandal five years later (https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/ohio/ohio-house-bill-6-firstenergy-60-million-bribery-scandal-5-years-later-dark-money-puco-hb6-householder/95-cbcafd22-a72d-458a-9df6-b0cfb7fe8c47)