The Blade historically has tended to refrain from endorsing candidates in partisan primary elections. We have generally looked on the selection of nominees as the prerogative of political parties and their voters. That’s why we are not offering a recommendation, for either party, in Tuesday’s Ohio presidential primary.

Nor are we endorsing anyone in the state’s U.S. Senate primary contests. But we urge Ohioans who will vote in the Democratic primary to look carefully at not just the favorite in that race, former Gov. and U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, but also his chief opponent, Cincinnati City Council member P.G. Sittenfeld. Voters have a meaningful choice.

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Since he announced his candidacy more than a year ago to challenge first-term incumbent Republican Sen. Rob Portman, Mr. Strickland has run as if his party’s nomination were a foregone conclusion. His six terms in the U.S. House and four years as governor give him greater name recognition among voters than Mr. Sittenfeld; he is substantially ahead in polls. 

Mr. Strickland has run the table on endorsements from the Ohio and national Democratic establishments, from President Obama on down. He has largely limited his campaign appearances to friendly audiences, and even other Democrats have noted his overall lack of visibility. 

Aside from taking part in a joint interview at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mr. Strickland has refused to debate Mr. Sittenfeld, despite offers by media outlets (including The Blade) and other groups across the state to sponsor such forums. That leaves him open to charges that he has disdained not only voters but also the democratic process, displaying the attributes of a comfortable career politician.

Debates would have enabled voters to evaluate both candidates side by side, and forced the contenders to address difficult issues that they might prefer to avoid. Such encounters would have helped prepare the eventual nominee for a tough general-election campaign against a well-funded and prominent incumbent. But Mr. Strickland said that debates would have been a mere distraction from his challenge to Senator Portman.

Mr. Strickland last won an election a decade ago — when, to be sure, voters’ decision to make him governor helped Ohio recover from the Tom Noe scandal. He lost his bid for a second term as governor to Republican John Kasich in 2010. If he were to be elected in November, he would be 75 years old when he took office — one of the oldest freshman senators in history.

Mr. Sittenfeld, by comparison, is 31; four years ago, he was the youngest candidate ever elected to Cincinnati’s council. Citing his own record of job creation and school reform, he argues that he represents an emerging generation of political leaders in Ohio — and by implication, that Mr. Strickland reflects the past. 

In a year in which voters are turning to insurgent candidates at every level, in search of new voices and fresh faces, such a contrast could work in Mr. Sittenfeld’s favor. He offers his own set of endorsements, including several by top Lucas County elected officials.

An advocate of stricter gun regulation, Mr. Sittenfeld has effectively focused on Mr. Strickland’s contradictory  statements on the issue. His positions on other issues — from cleaning up Lake Erie to strengthening central cities such as Toledo — are at least as substantive as Mr. Strickland’s platform.

Also on the Democratic Senate primary ballot is Kelli Prather, an occupational therapist from Cincinnati. On the Republican side, Mr. Portman faces opposition from Don Elijah Eckhart, a retiree from suburban Columbus who seeks to make an issue of the senator’s support for same-sex marriage.

Ohioans of a certain age may remember the state’s Democratic Senate primary in 1968: Two-term incumbent Sen. Frank Lausche, age 72, was heavily favored to win renomination, but lost to challenger John Gilligan. Such things happen.

The outcome of this fall’s election in Ohio could determine which party will control the Senate as a new president takes office next year. This Tuesday, Ohio’s Democratic voters owe it to themselves not to take anything for granted — or to allow any candidate to do so on their behalf.

First Published March 13, 2016, 5:00 a.m.