Snollygoster | Ohio's Politics Podcast

The candidates are set for Ohio's general election in November. There were no big surprises in this week’s primary.

Sherrod Brown easily beat his Democratic primary opponent and will face Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted.

In the governor’s race, Democrat Amy Acton was unopposed. Vivek Ramaswamy easily beat his Republican challenger, Casey Putsch. Ramaswamy says Republicans are unified to take on Acton, whom he calls a socialist. Hyperbole aside, here is a significant contrast between the tech billionaire and the former Ohio director of public health.

In other races, the favorites in the secretary of state primaries won. Current Treasurer Robert Sprague will face former House Democratic Leader Allison Russo.

In the Republican primary for state treasurer, J.D. Vance-backed Jay Edwards beat Ramaswamy-backed Kristina Roegner by a comfortable margin.

In a closely watched Republican primary in northwest Ohio, former state Rep. Derek Merrin won the chance for a rematch with U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo.

To help break down the races, especially that congressional contest in the 9th District in northwest Ohio, we welcome University of Toledo political science professor Sam Nelson.

Snollygoster of the week

This week was a difficult one for Melanie Leneghan of Delaware County, located just north of Columbus.

She sat on the Delaware County Board of Elections and was a member of the Republican State Central Committee. However, a fellow Delaware County Republican accused Leneghan of living in South Carolina rather than Ohio.

While Leneghan sold her Powell home last year, travels often for work, and owns properties in South Carolina, she maintained that she still lives in Delaware County. She registered to vote at the address of a friend. Eventually, the friend transferred partial ownership of that home to Leneghan for free.

The controversy moved through the courts and the Delaware County Board of Elections over the past few months.

This week, the Ohio Supreme Court ended the matter. The court ruled 7-0 that Leneghan no longer lives in Ohio. This means she must be removed from the voter rolls and cannot run for her seat on the Republican State Central Committee. Because she is no longer a registered voter, she also cannot sit on the Delaware County Board of Elections.

The situation is complicated. In the 2018 primary for Congress, Leneghan nearly defeated Troy Balderson.

For getting every member of the Ohio Supreme Court to agree on a controversial political issue, Melanie Leneghan receives the Snollygoster of the Week award.

(photo: Jacquelyn Martin / AP)

An important election is just around the corner. Ohio will elect a new governor and decide who will represent the state in the U.S. Senate. A new poll provides a snapshot of what voters are thinking, and the results are interesting.

The big headline from the Bowling Green State University poll is that the governor’s race is a dead heat. The BGSU poll shows Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton are basically tied. Ramaswamy has 48% support while Acton has 47%. That 1-point margin is well within the poll’s 3% margin of error.

In the race for the U.S. Senate, the same poll showed that the contest is also basically tied. Jon Husted has a 3-point lead over his Democratic challenger, Sherrod Brown. This also remains within the poll’s margin of error.

Given the political angst and polarization in the country, the results should come as no surprise. However, the poll gives Democrats hope and Republicans pause that deep-red Ohio could see tinges of blue after the November election.

Joining us to dissect the poll is Bowling Green State University political science professor Robert Alexander. He directs the BGSU Ohio poll.

The race for Ohio governor has gotten personal in recent weeks.

Republican Vivek Ramaswamy is out with a new ad where his wife shows off their new baby. In another ad, he goes after Democrat Amy Acton for her role in the COVID-19 shutdowns.

Acton has been left to explain an incident at her home in 2019. NBC was first to report that Bexley police responded to a report of a domestic dispute between Acton and her husband. The report said the couple had a verbal argument and a mirror fell from the wall and shattered. There was no evidence of physical violence and no charges were filed.

Acton said it was an argument over her long work hours. Acton’s campaign this week criticized Ramaswamy’s campaign for making an issue of her seeking counseling for sexual abuse she suffered as a child.

To get a look at where this race and the race for U.S. Senate stand, we turn to WOSU-TV’s "Columbus on the Record" panel: reporter Jessie Balmert of the USA Today Ohio Network, Republican strategist Terry Casey and Democratic strategist Stanley Gates.

Snollygoster of the week

The National Women’s Soccer League announced this week that it would put an expansion team in Columbus.

It was very dramatic. It sounded like for Columbus to land the team, the Columbus City Council and Franklin County commissioners had to chip in $50 million. It was very contentious whether to give billionaire owners public money for their team. It went right down to the wire. Columbus City Council voted Monday night to award its share, and the Franklin County commissioners voted Tuesday morning.

Just a couple of hours later, league officials, Mayor Ginther, and the team owners were all on a stage announcing Columbus got the team.

It was amazingly quick work. The commissioner was in town. There was a stage and banners set at the stadium. There was a logo and a pre-produced video, all presented just moments after the last crucial political vote.

It makes you wonder one of two things: the votes were decided long before the meetings, or the public money was not really needed to make the business decision to put a pro sports franchise in Columbus, a city that has long been at the heart of American soccer.

Either way, for securing the public money and for quickly launching a glitzy announcement, the owners of the yet-to-be-named Columbus women's soccer team and the National Women's Soccer League get our Snollygoster of the Week award.

We look back at a time when Ohio was blue politically, or at least purple. And explore the reasons why Ohio has become pretty deeply Red.

We will play an interview I did on WOSU TV’s Columbus on the Record with longtime Democratic activist Dale Butland.

For 20 years, Dale worked for U.S. Sen. John Glenn, a Democrat. He also worked briefly for Ohio's other longtime U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, another Democrat.

When Glenn left the Senate, Butland worked for many years helping progressive candidates and campaigns in Ohio.

Dale is out with a new book, When Ohio Was Blue: My 20 Year Journey with John Glenn. It's a personal inside look at how the system works or is supposed to work.

Snollygoster Of The Week

We could give it to JD Vance for putting a picture of a Methodist church in rural Virginia on the cover of his new book, which describes the Ohioan’s conversations with the Catholic Church, but that might not be shrewd.

Instead, we’ll give it to Samuel Ronan, who was running in the Ohio U.S. House District 15 Republican Primary against Rep. Mike Carey of Columbus.

The problem is that Ronan appears to be a Democrat. Here’s a look at some of his positions:

• No one making less than $100,000 a year should pay federal taxes
• He supports higher taxes on the rich
• Complete divestment from fossil fuels by 2035
• Wide expansion of high speed rail
• Turning all of our paved areas into solar energy-creating surfaces

You get the idea. Oh, and he once ran an unsuccessful campaign to be Democratic National Chairman.

Well, a federal judge looked at Ronan’s background and determined he’s not really a Republican and should not run in the GOP primary. Ronan has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but as of now, he's off the ballot.

It was a long-shot campaign for sure. But for a pretty far left progressive trying to run in the Republican primary for Congress, Samuel Ronan gets our Snollygoster of the week award.

The 2028 presidential campaign likely will start about a year from now, but Democrats are not waiting to take on a likely candidate: Ohioan and Vice President JD Vance.

Late last month, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear took a road trip to Ohio, where he spoke to a crowd of fellow Democrats in Vance’s home turf of Butler County.

Beshear, who is considering a run for president himself, said Vance has abandoned his home region. He called Vance’s memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," hillbilly hate and poverty tourism.

Other potential Democratic candidates for president have also taken swipes at Vance.

A spokesman for Vance told The Associated Press that when Beshear seeks publicity, he ends up humiliating himself.

To preview Vance’s likely presidential campaign, we turn to the "Columbus on the Record" panel. Joining us are reporters Jo Ingles from Ohio Public Radio and Andrew Tobias from Signal Statewide, Democrat Joseph Mas from the Ohio Hispanic Coalition and Republican former state legislator Gene Krebs, who gives us the view from far western Ohio.

Snollygoster of the week

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the state park rangers, what kind of shrewd politics are they up to?

As Signal Statewide and the Columbus Dispatch first reported, they want to change the name of the Charles O. Trump Wildlife Area in Pickaway County, south of Columbus.

Technically, ODNR would not change the name but shorten it to the Trump Wildlife Area.

A spokesman declined to say what prompted the agency to offer the option of eliminating "Charles O." from the area’s signs and marketing materials.

As for Charles, he was a local farmer who died a bachelor 20 years ago and donated 128 acres of land for conservation purposes. He was not related to the president of the United States.

For whatever reason, by trying to change the name of the Charles O. Trump Wildlife Area, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources gets our Snollygoster of the Week award.

(Photo: Elizabeth Frantz / AP / New York Times)

JobsOhio is in the news not because of a big new project, but because of the role, however small, it played in the sudden resignation of Ohio State University President Ted Carter.

Carter resigned after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a podcaster sponsored by JobsOhio. The agency gave her $60,000 for four episodes of a little-watched podcast on veterans' employment.

Former Gov. John Kasich, who helped create JobsOhio, took to social media to criticize the deal and accused JobsOhio of mission creep. That brought a response from Attorney General Dave Yost, who criticized Kasich for creating a publicly funded agency that operates with no oversight.

Yost urged his fellow Republican to look in the mirror. Yost said that as auditor of state, he worried about such things. He told Kasich that the former governor ignored a subpoena and twisted every arm in the Legislature to pass a law to stop Yost from auditing JobsOhio. Yost then asked what other things have not come to light.

To help us better understand this story, we turn to the Columbus on the Record panel from WOSU. Joining us are progressive activist Morgan Harper, Republican strategist Mike Gonidakis, and Statehouse reporters Jessie Balmert of the USA Today Ohio Network and Karen Kasler of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Snollygoster of the week

As you probably know, Congress and the president have partially shut down the government. Democrats in Congress will not approve funding for the Department of Homeland Security until it changes its immigration enforcement practices.

The White House and Republicans so far have refused to budge. Among other things, that means TSA agents at airports are not getting paid. After a month of not getting paid, many have stopped coming to work.

That has led to long lines at airports and many passengers missing their flights. Airlines then have to clean up the mess and rebook those passengers.

Delta Air Lines announced it no longer will provide special services to members of Congress. Those services included airport escorts and a dedicated reservations line that allows lawmakers to make last-minute changes.

That is over, at least until the shutdown ends, TSA agents get paid and lines shorten. Senators and representatives now have to line up in zones four through eight and gate-check their carry-on bags.

(Photo: Al Behrman / AP)

Data centers are shaping up to be a very important topic in the 2026 midterms.

Ohio has become fertile ground for data center construction. The state has some 200 data centers. At first, companies were building them near cities. The Columbus area has more than half of the state’s data centers, while metro Cleveland and Cincinnati have a couple dozen each.

But more computer companies are looking to rural areas to locate the centers.

These data centers need a lot of power to run the computers and keep them cool. Utilities struggle to keep up. They must expand the grid and bring new generation online. The question is who is going to pay for it. Residential electrical bills have already risen because of the increased demand.

These centers also need water to help keep servers cool.

At first, communities and the state fell over themselves to attract data centers. It is considered cool to have Google and Meta in a small town, and the thinking goes that data centers will bring in other companies.

Local communities offered tax breaks and the state offered incentives. The state does not charge sales tax to data center firms when they buy equipment for their facilities.

But as electric bills rise and the data centers start to encroach upon suburbs and swallow up farmland, suddenly, they are not so cool. Politicians are hearing from voters and starting to ask if data centers are worth it.

This week, a group of people in far southern Ohio along the Ohio River submitted petition language and signatures in an effort to win passage of a new constitutional amendment to ban large data centers in Ohio. It is the first step in a difficult process. The group must collect more than 400,000 valid signatures in the next three and a half months to get on the November ballot.

Joining us to discuss this effort is Nikki Gerber, co-organizer of the group.

Higher Ed

No matter what you think of his positions, Vivek Ramaswamy is not afraid to take bold stances. The Republican started his campaign for governor, looking to eliminate income taxes and property taxes.

He and his campaign later clarified his position, stating that he wants to lower property taxes.

This week, he was caught on video targeting Ohio colleges and universities.

"We have too many of them," Ramaswamy said, "They need to be consolidated. And when you consolidate them, they can actually be centers of excellence who are actually the best in their respective domains, instead of trying to create replicas and clones of one another throughout the state.”

After the clip went viral and criticism followed, the Ramaswamy campaign said he does not support eliminating universities. Instead, the campaign stated he wants to cut the bureaucracy that burdens them to make college more affordable.

Still, Democrats say the comment shows that Ramaswamy is out of touch with Ohioans.

According to the Ohio Department of Higher Education, the state has:

• 36 public two-year and four-year colleges and universities
• 74 independent institutions
• 49 technical centers

Families are not having as many children, so the number of students is shrinking. Additionally, more young people are avoiding college and the debt that often comes with it. Ramaswamy may be saying out loud what many in academia say privately.

Snollygoster of the week

This week, John Kasich criticized JobsOhio, the state’s publicly funded, privately run economic agency, for paying $60,000 to sponsor four episodes of a podcast hosted by a woman linked to the sudden resignation of Ohio State University President Ted Carter.

Kasich wrote on social media that he was extremely disappointed in JobsOhio for the sponsorship and worried the agency was drifting away from its mission.

It is very hard to know if JobsOhio is spending its money wisely because Gov. Kasich and the legislature set it up as a private entity. The public cannot see its spending.

Even current Attorney General Dave Yost called out Kasich, telling him to look in the mirror. Yost wrote that when he was state auditor, he wanted to audit JobsOhio but the governor successfully fought it off.

So, for now, pointing fingers at a secretive organization he set up, former Gov. John Kasich gets our Snollygoster of the Week award.

(photo: Mark Duncan / AP)

A presidential bombshell dropped this week. No, this is not about President Trump calling the Iran war a "short-term excursion." This is not even about the president of the United States.

The focus is on the president of Ohio State University, who resigned this week, or was forced to quit.

Ted Carter’s resignation came after he acknowledged an inappropriate relationship with a woman seeking public resources to support her personal business.

While all details are not yet known, the university says the matter is under investigation. It is looking into Carter’s relationship with a podcaster who produced shows on post-military jobs. Carter is a retired Navy vice admiral.

The podcaster produced some of her shows here at WOSU under a private client contract.

It has been a strange few days at Ohio State and WOSU as the situation unfolds.

The resignation ends Carter's short two-year stint as OSU president. It was an eventful tenure. He took office as Palestinian protests were occurring at OSU and campuses around the country. Trump was threatening schools that did not crack down on protesters or eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Tens of millions of dollars in federal research money was on the line.

At the state level, the Ohio legislature passed a new law banning DEI programs. Carter eliminated the OSU diversity office even before the bill became law. He also banned chalking on campus sidewalks, presumably for fear of controversial slogans. He did, however, get to enjoy last year’s football national championship.

While its end was unusual, Carter’s tenure may not be all that uncommon. The job has always been difficult, but it seems to be increasingly challenging in recent years.

To examine the practices and politics of being a college president, we turn to Josh Moody. He is a reporter for Inside Higher Ed who covers money and management in higher education.

State of the State - (22:30)

Gov. Mike DeWine gave his final State of the State address this week. Next year, he will be retired, and we assume Democrat Amy Acton or Republican Vivek Ramaswamy will address the legislature.

It should come as no surprise, but DeWine played it safe in this final address. He spent about a quarter of his hour-long speech talking about the science of reading, which is basically phonics, and how a new state law mandating it is paying off with better reading scores.

He called for tougher seat belt laws, especially for children. He also asked lawmakers to ban AI child pornography, which is going to be a tough sell. He also wants to double the amount of recess time in school from 30 minutes to 60 minutes.

Perhaps he is trying to soften the blow for those students who can no longer use their phones in school because of a law he signed.

It is safe to say DeWine wants his legacy to be that he tried to take care of children and help them live to their "God-given potential," as he often says.

However, there was nothing on the cost of living, nothing on skyrocketing property taxes, and nothing about the cost of daycare to help families with young children. There was also nothing on the death penalty, which he has discussed recently.

He did mention his clean water initiative, but he did not ask the legislature to pay for it.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, DeWine has done his best to avoid controversy. In his last State of the State address, he did exactly that.

Snollygoster of the week - (25:00)

U.S. Sen. Jon Husted was scheduled to testify this week in the FirstEnergy executive nuclear bailout bribery trial. When he was lieutenant governor, Husted supported the bailout. Attorneys said he could not testify in person because of the ongoing war in Iran.

While attorneys claimed Husted had to testify by video because of the war, Channel 5 in Cleveland reports that he traveled back to Ohio this past weekend for a fundraiser.

For his part-time, sometimes remote monitoring of the war, Sen. Jon Husted gets our Snollygoster of the Week award.

The United States once again is waging war in the Middle East. President Trump ordered the U.S. military to join Israel in a massive bombing campaign in Iran. It has killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, many other Iranian leaders, and hundreds of civilians.

Given that this is an Ohio politics podcast, we will focus on how Ohioans are reacting to this.

Ohio’s congressional delegation largely split along partisan lines in reacting to the attacks.

But the guy many were watching was Ohio’s JD Vance. The former senator and now vice president once strongly said the United States should not get involved in endless wars.

But soon after the attacks, Vance called Iran a major threat and defended President Trump’s starting a war in the Middle East.

Critics say the president and his administration have not laid out a clear justification or strategy going forward. The justification shifted to supporting Iranian protesters, to Iran’s nuclear threat, to ballistic weapons, to regime change. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said we had to protect American forces because Israel was going to attack.

Maybe it is one of those, all of those, or none of those.

Death Penalty

Governor Mike DeWine has less than a year left in his term. He has long expressed serious reservations about the state’s death penalty.

Ohio has not executed an inmate in his nearly eight years as governor. He has postponed every execution to come before his desk, citing the inability to get lethal injection drugs. The governor now hints he may ask lawmakers to permanently end the death penalty in the state.

To dig a little deeper on this, we turn to a panel of statehouse insiders: reporter Andrew Tobias of Signal Statewide, OSU political scientist Herb Asher, and Republican strategist Mike Gonidakis.

Snollygoster of the week

Time now for our Snollygoster of the Week segment, where we honor the shrewdest politician or political move of the week. This week we give it to Delaware County Board of Elections member Melanie Leneghan, who is also running for re‑election to the State Republican Central Committee.

Her opponent for the committee seat, Rebecca Norse, messed up. As first reported by The Columbus Dispatch, Norse put the wrong date on her filing paperwork. At first, the Delaware County Board of Elections said the rules are the rules, and they took Norse’s name off the ballot. Norse appealed, and the board reconsidered it at this meeting. The board split. The two Democrats voted to put her name on the ballot, the two Republicans said no, and one of the Republicans was Norse’s opponent, Melanie Leneghan.

So instead of recusing herself, Leneghan voted to take her opponent off the ballot. It is now up to Secretary of State Frank LaRose to break the tie.

For not recusing herself when there was an obvious conflict of interest, Melanie Leneghan gets our Snollygoster of the Week award.

And this story might not end there. Another Delaware County Republican has challenged Leneghan’s position on the central committee, saying Leneghan does not live in Ohio. Leneghan insists she is a resident of Delaware County.

I will say, for a relatively sleepy suburban‑rural county, Delaware has some interesting politics.

(photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP)

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal has had strong ties to Central Ohio. Last week, the congressional investigation into Epstein’s associates came to New Albany.

Limited founder Les Wexner gave a deposition to the House Oversight Committee. He answered questions from members of the House Oversight Committee for about five hours about how much he knew about the sex offender and what role he may have played in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking.

Before the session began, Wexner submitted a long statement in which he said, “I was naïve, foolish, and gullible to put any trust in Jeffrey Epstein. He was a con man. And while I was conned, I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide.”

Wexner’s name appears in the Epstein files thousands of times. They had a long relationship. Epstein controlled Wexner’s money for years. Wexner says Epstein stole from him. During the deposition, Wexner maintained that his relationship with Epstein was just business.

Our panel of statehouse insiders this week includes reporters Jessie Balmert of the USA Today Ohio Network and Sarah Donaldson of Ohio Public Radio, Democratic strategist Stanley Gates, and Republican strategist Bob Clegg.

Snollygoster of the week

The state of Ohio pays the private school tuition of school kids who opt for private schools. Lawmakers over the years have widened the program, so now basically every family in Ohio can get assistance. The awards are income‑based to some degree.

Public school advocates strongly oppose the vouchers and say the money would be better spent improving public schools.

But now some shrewd school districts and parents have found a way to use a private school tuition tool to pay for all‑day kindergarten in public schools. Parents have to pay an extra fee for all‑day kindergarten in most districts.

To help parents pay those fees, and to pay for the programs, those districts are using a little‑known tax credit that rewards Ohioans who donate to private school scholarship funds. Those Ohioans get a dollar‑for‑dollar tax credit, which basically means they get their money back.

As Cleveland.com first reported, a small handful of districts have set up the private scholarship funds. Parents donate, the funds award scholarships to pay for all‑day kindergarten, and the parents get their money back in the form of a tax credit.

So the bottom line is that a state program designed to pay for private school tuition with tax dollars is also being used to pay for public all‑day kindergarten.