John Richard Kasich Jr. is an American politician, author, and television news host who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 2001 and as the 69th Governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019. A Republican, Kasich unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 2000 and 2016.
Nancy Putnam Hollister is an American politician from the U.S. state of Ohio. Hollister was the first and, to date, only female Governor of Ohio, serving briefly from December 1998 to January 1999. She attended Kent State University, and upon leaving college she became a housewife. She began her political career in the 1980s. She is a member of the Republican Party.
Theodore S. "Ted" Celeste is a former American politician and a member of the Democratic party in Ohio. After serving in the Peace Corps, Celeste, the brother of former Ohio governor and U.S. ambassador Dick Celeste, ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000 and lost to the Republican incumbent Mike DeWine. In 2006, Celeste was elected State Representative of Ohio's 24th District, and served until 2012.
Theodore Strickland is an American politician who was the 68th Governor of Ohio, serving from 2007 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 6th congressional district.
The Columbus Dispatch is a daily newspaper based in Columbus, Ohio. Its first issue was published on July 1, 1871, and it has been the only mainstream daily newspaper in the city since The Columbus Citizen-Journal ceased publication in 1985.
Michael B. Coleman is an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as the 52nd mayor of Columbus, Ohio. He was the first African-American to serve as the mayor of Ohio's capital city.
Jennifer Garrison is an American politician of the Democratic party from Marietta, Ohio. From 2005 to 2010 she represented the 93rd District in the Ohio House of Representatives, which includes Guernsey, Monroe and Noble counties, most of Washington County, and part of Muskingum County, all in southeast Ohio.
Bruce Edward Johnson is an American lawyer and Republican politician who was appointed the State of Ohio's 63rd Lieutenant Governor on January 5, 2005, to complete an unexpired term. Johnson concurrently served as Director of the Ohio Department of Development.
Martha Layne Collins is an American former businesswoman and politician from the Commonwealth of Kentucky; she was elected as the state's 56th governor from 1983 to 1987, the first woman to hold the office and the only one to date. Prior to that, she served as the 48th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, under John Y. Brown, Jr. Her election made her the highest-ranking Democratic woman in the U.S. She was considered as a possible running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election, but Mondale chose Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro instead.
Mary Taylor is an American businesswoman and politician who served as the 65th lieutenant governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019.
Eugenia Crittenden Blackburn "Crit" Luallen served as the 56th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky from November 13, 2014, to December 8, 2015. Luallen previously served as Kentucky State Auditor.
Helen Jones-Kelley is the former Director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS), Ohio's largest agency, from 2007 to 2008. During her tenure she received substantial media attention for various ODJFS related activities, and for her role in the Controversial Ohio database searches of Joe Wurzelbacher.
David J. Leland is an Ohio politician, currently a member of the Ohio House of Representatives representing the 22nd House district, and a partner at litigation law firm Carpenter Lipps & Leland LLP in Columbus, Ohio. Leland is the former Ohio Democratic Party Chair, a position he held from 1995 until 2002. More recently, Leland served as the finance chair and senior advisor to the successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign of Ted Strickland, for which Leland helped raise a record $17 million.
Douglas E. Lumpkin, an Ohio civil servant, was appointed as the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS), Ohio's largest agency, and a member of the Ohio Governor's Cabinet, by Governor Ted Strickland on December 19, 2008. Lumpkin began his tenure as director of the ODJFS on January 12, 2009.
Controversial Ohio database searches of Joe Wurzelbacher occurred during the last few weeks of the 2008 US Presidential election campaign, when Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) employees, and Ohio officials, became embroiled in a controversy over searches of Joe Wurzelbacher's government records after he came to national attention as "Joe the Plumber." The matter led to substantial news media attention during the presidential campaign, a new law being signed in Ohio, and a federal civil rights lawsuit which was dismissed on August 4, 2010, on grounds that the privacy violation did not amount to a constitutional violation of the right to privacy.
Yvette McGee Brown became the first African-American female justice on the Ohio Supreme Court when she took office on January 1, 2011. She was the founding president of the Center for Child and Family Advocacy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, and was a judge of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas for nine years.
The 2014 Ohio gubernatorial election took place on November 4, 2014. Incumbent Republican Governor John Kasich won reelection to a second term in office by a landslide over Democratic candidate Ed FitzGerald and Green Party candidate Anita Rios. Primary elections were held on May 6, 2014.
Edward "Ed" FitzGerald is an American politician who served as the first Cuyahoga County Executive from 2011 until 2015. He was the Democratic Party nominee for governor of Ohio in the 2014 election, and was defeated by the incumbent, John Kasich. Before being elected county executive, FitzGerald served as mayor of Lakewood, Ohio; a Lakewood city councilman; an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor; and a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The 2016 United States Senate election in Ohio was held November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Ohio, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. The close of registration for electors in the primary election was December 16, 2015, and the primary election took place on March 15, 2016. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Rob Portman faced former Democratic Governor Ted Strickland. Green Party nominee Joseph DeMare was also on the ballot along with two other independent candidates and one officially declared write-in candidate. This would be Rob Portman's final term in office before he retires in 2022.
