Ohio News/Politics Episodes

Jerrad Christian, the Democratic nominee in Ohio's 12th Congressional District, returns to Purple Political Breakdown: Ohio Edition for a general election follow-up as he challenges Republican Rep. Troy Balderson this November. Jerrad won the May primary and now faces a district he describes as running from some of Ohio's wealthiest suburbs to some of its poorest Appalachian counties. We cover where his platform stands, how it contrasts with Balderson, and the Ohio issues driving the 2026 midter...

Jim Jordan has represented Ohio's 4th District since 2006. He hasn't held a public town hall since 2017. This week I sat down with Joshua Kolasinski, the Democrat running against him, for a full hour on what he'd actually do in Washington and how he plans to reach voters in a district that isn't close. We got into a total stock trading ban for members of Congress and their spouses, term limits, universal health care versus a public option, property taxes and school vouchers, d...

An armed man forced his way through a crowd toward Dr. Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor, while she spoke at the Mahoning County Democratic Party tent at the Canfield Fair on Sunday, September 6, 2026. Multiple people were knocked down. Patrick Havas, 38, of Canfield, was taken into custody and booked at the Mahoning County Jail on charges of disorderly conduct and two counts of assault. This is an emergency episode of Purple Political Breakdown, Ohio Edition. No script, no pr...

Ohio's Democratic nominee for governor won't debate. Ohio's Republican nominee has accepted two invitations. Neither has ever held elected office, and right now the plan is for you to pick one without ever seeing them answer a hard question in the same room. This week: Issue 3 explained in plain English, including the part the official ballot language gets wrong. The Ohio Supreme Court orders Trenton, in Butler County, to put a data center ban in front of its own voters. Two Republicans an...

Ohio's two biggest races are both inside the margin of error, and this week the money, the ads, and the courts all moved at once. A Pennsylvania financier has now put at least $30 million behind Vivek Ramaswamy through a federal super PAC, which is more than Amy Acton has reported raising for her entire campaign. Financial disclosures show Sen. Jon Husted's wife held Intel stock while he worked to advance the company's Ohio project. A federal judge blocked Ohio's new proof of citizenship requir...

A leaked memo from the campaign arm of Senate Republicans says data centers are "the anchor hanging around Jon Husted's neck." That is not opposition research. That is the National Republican Senatorial Committee, in writing, to artificial intelligence companies. This week, Ohio politics ran through one issue: data centers, and who pays for them. Host Radell Lewis breaks down the leaked NRSC memo, the OpenAI data center in Piketon, the tax exemption that missed its own state estimate by eleve...

Ohio has an open race for Secretary of State for the first time since 2018, and almost nobody is watching it. Republican Treasurer Robert Sprague faces Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo, with Libertarian Tom Pruss also on the November 3 ballot. This episode breaks down what the office actually controls, where both candidates stand, and the Issue 3 disagreement that split the Democratic ticket in public. On August 7, Democratic governor nominee Dr. Amy Acton announced she supports Issue 3, the...

Ohio's 7th Congressional District has a deadline, and it lands Monday afternoon. Rep. Max Miller let the 90 day withdrawal mark pass on Wednesday, which killed any chance of a special primary. That leaves August 10 as the last day county party chairs can name a replacement on the ballot, and Cuyahoga County has to give two days notice before that meeting even happens. If Miller withdraws after Monday, there is no Republican on the ballot against Democrat Brian Poindexter. Meanwhile a co/efficie...

Ohio's 7th Congressional District was rated Solid Republican. It is not anymore. This week the Purple Political Breakdown Ohio Edition covers the race almost nobody outside Ohio was watching, and the reasons it moved. Congressman Max Miller is facing domestic abuse allegations from his former wife, Emily Moreno, who is the daughter of Republican Senator Bernie Moreno. Miller denies the allegations and has filed a defamation suit. No charges were filed in the police matter that made the records ...

Ohio's governor race just got a new label. Cook Political Report moved Ramaswamy vs. Acton from Lean Republican to Toss Up, and Ohio's largest police union broke decades of habit to endorse a full Republican statewide ticket for the first time in recent memory. This episode covers both, plus the ten Ohio House seats that could decide whether Republicans keep veto proof control of Columbus. In this episode: the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio endorses Vivek Ramaswamy, Jon Husted, and Keith Fab...

Ohio just landed at number one on CNBC's 2026 list of the best states for business, the first time it has ever finished first. In this Ohio Edition of the Purple Political Breakdown, Radell Lewis follows the money and the power lines behind that ranking, and breaks down who is actually on your 2026 ballot in Ohio's 11th and 12th Congressional Districts. We get into Elon Musk's five million dollar check to V PAC: Victors, Not Victims, the super PAC backing Vivek Ramaswamy, and the billionaire do...

Ohio sold fifteen thousand acres of public wildlife land to out of state frackers this week, days after officials killed a solar farm in Clark County. Meanwhile, over two thousand provisional ballots got thrown out in the May primary, and only 23 percent of Ohio's 18 year olds are registered to vote at all. The Supreme Court also handed down three rulings this week that land right back in Ohio, on mail ballots, birthright citizenship, and campaign finance. We close out with the two U.S. House ra...

What does it take for a young, progressive Democrat to run for the Ohio Statehouse in a district that leans Republican? This week on the Purple Political Breakdown, Ohio Edition, I sit down with Daquan Neal, the Democratic nominee for Ohio House District 39, covering Northern Montgomery County and the Dayton area: Vandalia, Englewood, Huber Heights, Clayton, Northridge, Fort McKinley, Harrison Township, and Butler Township. Daquan is 30 years old, a Central State University graduate, and a fo...

Purple Political Breakdown: Ohio Edition takes you through three Ohio congressional races and the statewide news shaping the 2026 midterms. Host Radell Lewis breaks down the 6th, 7th, and 8th districts: Michael Rulli versus Elizabeth Kirtley in the east, the more competitive Max Miller versus Brian Poindexter race in the northeast, and Warren Davidson versus Vanessa Enoch in the southwest, the district Radell calls home. Before the districts, Radell follows the money. New campaign finance repor...

This week on Purple Political Breakdown Ohio Edition, Radell Lewis follows the money and the power across Ohio politics and keeps circling one question: who is Ohio's government actually working for? Radell opens with the biggest and newest story, the FBI search of the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a progressive group that registers voters, and why the timing and the target deserve a hard, skeptical look. He revisits the FirstEnergy corruption scandal as the real, prov...

Two Ohio congressional seats. Two settled outcomes. And two Republican candidates carrying controversies that are hard to ignore. On this episode of Purple Political Breakdown Ohio Edition, host Radell Lewis breaks down the 2026 races in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District, Republican incumbent David Taylor against Democrat Jen Mazzuckelli, and Ohio's 3rd Congressional District, longtime Democrat Joyce Beatty against Republican Cleophus Dulaney. Radell digs into the documented swastika flag contr...

Ohio Republicans redrew the 1st Congressional District to make it harder for a Democrat to hold, and now one of the most watched U.S. House races in the state is set: two-term incumbent Greg Landsman against Trump-endorsed newcomer Eric Conroy. In this solo episode of Purple Political Breakdown Ohio Edition, host Radell Lewis breaks down who these two men actually are and what their platforms would mean for the people of Ohio's 1st. On Landsman: the former public school teacher and Cincinnati c...

Every statewide executive office in Ohio is on the ballot in 2026, and not a single incumbent is defending a seat. Term limits cleared the building all at once. In this solo episode of Purple Political Breakdown Ohio Edition, Radell Lewis walks through the entire Ohio ballot, from the top of the ticket down to the competitive congressional districts, so you know exactly what you are voting on. Governor: Dr. Amy Acton vs. Vivek Ramaswamy. U.S. Senate: Sherrod Brown vs. Jon Husted. Plus Attorney G...

Ohio's 2026 primary delivered the tightest Democratic-to-Republican turnout split since 2006, plus a wave of results that reshape what to expect in November. In this solo episode of Purple Political Breakdown Ohio Edition, Radell Lewis breaks down the Democratic primary winners for governor, U.S. Senate, Secretary of State, Attorney General, and key congressional districts including OH-1, OH-3, OH-7, OH-9, OH-10, OH-12, OH-13, and OH-15. Then we dig into what the numbers actually mean: the Vance...

Host Radell Lewis takes you inside the May 5, 2026 Ohio primary election in this bonus episode of Purple Political Breakdown. Recorded in real time on primary day, this walkthrough covers everything from why Election Day should be a federal holiday to a live look at the Ohio sample ballot, the voter lookup process on the Ohio Secretary of State website, and the absentee ballot system most voters never use. Radell breaks down his ballot picks across the biggest 2026 Ohio primary races, including...

Host Radell Lewis sits down with Laura, candidate for Ohio's 7th Congressional District, to break down one of the most flippable Republican seats heading into 2026. Once a R+15 district, OH-7 is now R+5 after redistricting, and incumbent Max Miller squeaked by at 51 percent even in a friendlier map. With recent child abuse allegations surfacing against Miller and a brand new county (Ashland) full of farmers no one has bothered to talk to, this race has every ingredient for a flip. Laura bring...

Host Radell Lewis sits down with two Ohio libertarian write-in candidates ahead of the May 5, 2026 primary in a double feature episode of Purple Political Breakdown. First up, Jason Stoops, an auto mechanic from Wilmington running in OH-1, who shares how he was politically retaliated against by his local administration, why he believes cash-pay healthcare beats the insurance bureaucracy, and how the FirstEnergy scandal exposed the rot in Ohio's GOP machine. Then drunk uncle Mike Veloff joins fro...

On this episode of Purple Political Breakdown, host Radell Lewis sits down with Dr. Bryan Hambley, Cincinnati leukemia physician and Democratic candidate for Ohio Secretary of State in the May 5, 2026 primary. Bryan grew up on a small family farm, trained as a blood cancer doctor at UC Health, and launched his outsider campaign in January 2025, well before the filing deadline, because he has watched his patients and Ohio communities suffer under a broken, gerrymandered democracy. Radell and B...

Host Radell Lewis breaks down Ohio's 2026 State Auditor race between Republican Frank LaRose, Democrat Annette Blackwell, and Libertarian write-in Aidan Jeffery, then runs through a wild week of Ohio political news on Purple Political Breakdown. This episode covers why the Auditor's office matters (hint: it's the only statewide office with the power to catch public officials misusing your tax dollars), how current Auditor Keith Faber's run for Attorney General is part of what reporters are call...