Jerrad Christian

I grew up in rural Ohio in a working-poor family where government programs and community weren’t abstract policy debates; they were the difference between eating and not. I couch-surfed as a kid, watched my mom fight cancer with Medicare keeping her alive, and have seen Social Security barely stretch far enough for the people in my life.

I served in the U.S. Navy as a flight deck fueler on a carrier during Operation Iraqi Freedom and, later, a meteorologist and oceanographer. After getting out and becoming a father, I took a job as a janitor in a factory - now I’m a software engineer. I've never been rich; I worked my way to where I am through a lot of work and a lot of luck. I want successes like mine to be the rule, not the exception.

I’m running for office because I refuse to hand my son a country hollowed out by corruption, cruelty, and short-term thinking. I believe in clean water, honest government, working families, being a good human, and telling the truth even when it’s uncomfortable. I don’t worship politicians. I don’t punch down. And I don’t back away from a fight when the stakes are this high.