The Port Clinton Republican who twice decorated his backyard in tribute to former President Donald Trump appeared to have won the right to challenge 40-year Congressional incumbent Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo).
While he unsurprisingly carried Erie and Ottawa counties in Tuesday’s primary voting, J.R. Majewski also carried Sandusky County and had a 1,400 vote lead over state Sen. Theresa Gavarone of Huron in Lucas County, the largest among the counties in the redrawn U.S. House of Representatives 9th District, with 72 percent of its precincts reporting.
While Ms. Gavarone won in her former home county, Wood County, and in Fulton County, and state Rep. Craig Riedel of Defiance carried his home county, Mr. Majewski’s overall advantage appeared more solid by the hour, while Mr. Riedel was polling second, trailing Mr. Majewski by about 3 percent of the vote in six polled counties. Only in Williams County were substantial results lagging by late evening.
Beth Deck, a program manager for the Ohio Department of Veterans’ Services who lives in Vermilion, carried about 5 percent of the vote.
Through spokesman Melissa Pelletier, Mr. Majewski said he and his campaign were “extremely grateful for our voters” while thanking his rivals for “a hard-fought race” and pledging to work with them for the district’s greater good.
“What I have learned over the past year is that Ohioans are ready to start putting America First,” Mr. Majewski said. “Our grassroots movement across northwest Ohio intensified with every terrible mistake the Biden administration continued and still continues to make. I am more energized than ever to unite the Republican base.”
Ms. Kaptur’s district until now had been staunchly Democratic. Following the 2010 census, the Ohio General Assembly redrew it to become even more so, connecting the bluest parts of metro Toledo with the west side of Cleveland as the so-called Snake on the Lake. In so doing, that district map combined the Democratic Party cores of Ms. Kaptur’s district with that of former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whom she then defeated in a primary in 2012.
Ms. Kaptur, now the longest-serving woman in Congress, faced no primary rival this time around, but she now is running for a district deemed by the political journal Politico to lean slightly to the right. More geographically compact than the Snake, it includes all of Williams, Fulton, Defiance, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Erie counties along with Lucas and northern Wood County.
Born in North Toledo, Mr. Majewski, 42, now lives in Port Clinton and is an executive with a company that specializes in safe storage of spent nuclear fuel, similar to work he once did at the nearby Davis-Besse nuclear power plant.
He appeared on the political radar in 2020 when he landscaped his backyard into a huge, blue Donald Trump poster, and he later traveled to Washington to participate in the Stop the Steal rally challenging Mr. Trump’s re-election defeat; he said he left the area before that rally morphed into a riot at the Capitol.
Mr. Majewski announced his candidacy for Congress the following month and later painted a portrait of Mr. Trump in his yard, and has presented himself as a political outsider who wants “to focus on the community” and bring back “healthy political discourse.”
While he now stops short of asserting the 2020 election was fraudulent, Mr. Majewski contends its irregularities warranted a more thorough investigation. And while he was observed wearing a QAnon shirt during a Fox News interview and used hashtags alluding to that conspiracy theory, Mr. Majewski later said he had not realized QAnon’s full meaning and had since donated the shirt to the Salvation Army.
The prospect of a contested race in the formerly safely Democratic district drew more than $1 million in outside political-action committee money for campaign advertising during the Republican primary race.
While Mr. Majewski’s and Ms. Deck’s campaigns were relatively low-key on television, Toledo airwaves were rife in recent weeks with ads either promoting or — especially — attacking Ms. Gavarone, who formerly lived in Bowling Green but rented a house in Huron, Ohio to establish residency in the new Ninth, and Mr. Riedel.
Mr. Majewski’s campaign did receive more than $230,000 in outside financial support, according to the Federal Election Commission, with most of it coming from the Drain the Swamp PAC, which also spent about $85,000 apiece attacking both Mr. Riedel and Ms. Gavarone.
Two other PACs, meanwhile, spent six figures opposing the two current state legislators’ congressional candidacies: Winning for Women Action Fund attacked Mr. Riedel to the tune of nearly $480,000, while the Northwest Ohio Freedom Fund spent over $300,000 on television, radio, and direct mail advertising against Ms. Gavarone.
Ms. Gavarone also received nearly $200,000 in positive ad support from the Defending Main Street Super PAC, according to FEC reports.
First Published May 4, 2022, 3:36 a.m.
