Seven Democrats are vying in the May 8 primary election for the chance to take a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives that has been in Republican hands since 1982.
They hope to replace U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Genoa Township), who has represented the 12th Congressional District, which stretches from northern parts of Franklin County to take in Delaware and Morrow counties and the Mansfield area and then east to cover all of Licking County and part of Muskingum County, for most of the past two decades.
Tiberi stepped down in January to take a job at the Ohio Business Roundtable, one year before his term expired.
Federal law requires a special election to fill an interim seat in such cases.
As a result, two separate primaries for both major parties are necessary May 8: one for the Aug. 7 special election to determine who serves Tiberi's final five months in office and the other to determine who will compete Nov. 6 for a full two-year term starting in January 2019.
Here are the Democrat candidates for the 12th District primaries:
Ed Albertson
Albertson, 66, of Granville said his experience in business and the military gives him skills that make him "uniquely suited to think creatively, solve problems and get things done."
He said he favors lowering the eligibility age of Medicare over time, phasing in a universal national health-care plan and allowing Medicare to expand into markets where private insurers fail to provide competitive health-care plans.
Albertson opposes President Donald Trump's tariffs on steel imports, saying the move is "ill-conceived" and "protects a few jobs at the expense of many more."
He would like to repeal the GOP tax cut passed in December and replace it with an infrastructure-investment plan.
Albertson supports expanding background checks on gun sales, closing the so-called gun-show loopholes and eliminating the product-liability protection enjoyed by the gun industry. He'd also like to ban military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines. He does not support arming teachers, calling it "a very stupid idea."
Danny O'Connor
O'Connor, 31, the Franklin County recorder, said that if elected, he would work to fix the Affordable Care Act because health care "is more than a political issue; it's literally life or death for many families."
He said that although he believes the nation needs to stand up to China and other nations that cheat on trade, he opposes tariffs on all those that play by the rules.
"We also need to balance the agricultural interests of our state," he writes. "We should not allow our farmers to be the victims in a trade war. We also should not allow President Trump to pit steelworkers against farmers. We need a fair-trade solution that benefits all Ohio workers."
He said he would fight any effort to roll back Medicaid funding in Ohio or across the country, and he would work to provide funding for first responders to equip them with opioid-overdose antidotes such as naloxone.
Jackie Patton
Patton, 52, of Columbus has worked as a school nurse for more than 20 years and said she has seen families and children at their most vulnerable. Because of this, she would like to use her role in Congress to address issues such as opioid addiction, chronic-disease prevention, food insecurity, access to affordable health care and safety.
She said she opposes Trump's steel tariffs, saying they will endanger other U.S. jobs. "Trade policy that impacts millions should not be spontaneous and communicated via Twitter," she writes. "Trade policy that impacts millions should be thought out and discussed with all major global trading partners."
Patton calls last year's tax cuts and changes "short-sighted" and said they will drive up the deficit. She supports balancing the federal budget, but not by reducing Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
John Peters
Like many others who are running, Peters, 38, of Newark expresses disillusionment with the political process.
"We have a system where political parties do everything in their power to anoint their carefully crafted, controlled Manchurian candidate who will toe the party line," he said.
Peters, who grew up in Marion and now works as a special-education teacher in Newark, calls for universal health care and universal preschool, and a health-care system that encourages early treatment and preventive care.
Peters said the nation needs to be prepared for an era of further automation, and it needs to bridge the transition by investing in a public-works program to build small, localized preschools and install solar panels on every roof to solve climate change and decentralize the power grid.
John Russell
Russell, 27, a Galena farmer, said the 12th District suffers from an economic divide, with Franklin and Delaware counties experiencing some of the strongest growth in the country while other areas of the district aren't enjoying similar benefits.
Russell said infrastructure investment could help level the playing field, and he also advocates for higher-paying jobs. He said he would push to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour if elected.
Russell supports a single-payer health care system, and it was his involvement in organizing a health-care town hall last year that helped drive him into politics. He said a single-payer system would reduce the costs of care by increasing negotiating power, driving costs down for consumers.
He calls for expanded access to addiction-maintenance medication such as methadone to properly address the opioid epidemic. The current system, he said, requires recovering addicts to fill a prescription daily, which makes it hard to hold down a job.
Zach Scott
Scott, 59, a real-estate agent and former Franklin County sheriff, said he would focus on jobs if elected, saying "too many have felt left out and left behind for too long."
He supports fixing, not repealing, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and he supports lowering the age of the Medicare buy-in option to ensure competition for private insurance companies.
Scott said he supports Trump's steel tariffs, saying that they "provide a level playing field for American steel and aluminum to combat the unfair practices of China. ... I will continue to watch and evaluate this policy to ensure it is truly helping American workers."
Scott said he supports background checks to ensure that guns stay out of the hands of criminals while also protecting the rights of responsible gun owners.
Doug Wilson
Wilson, 66, a respiratory-care practitioner from Mansfield, served as mayor of the Delaware County village of Ashley and as a member and president of its Village Council during the 1980s. He has been involved in politics since he was 13, marching for equal housing rights in Cuyahoga Falls in the mid-1960s.
Wilson said he is most concerned about the lack of fiscal responsibility in Congress, saying the recent tax cuts were "short-sighted and must be amended."
Similarly, he argues that Trump's proposed border wall would be both ineffective and costly and add to the deficit.
"Drone technology could patrol the border at a lower cost, and adding border officers would add jobs, not just create a costly and ineffective barrier," he said.
Wilson supports expanding Medicare into a single-payer, universal health care system and revising Medicaid into a system that would provide health care, health-education and preventive wellness programs, and treatment and counseling for substance abuse and mental health.
jwehrman@dispatch.com
@jessicawehrman