Democrats eye rematch: Nina Turner seeks to oust Shontel Brown from U.S. Congress seat
Emily Mills
Nina Turner, a former state senator and Bernie Sanders supporter who lost last year's Democratic primary election for the 11th Congressional District to Joe Biden supporter Shontel Brown, is again running for Congress.
Turner announced Wednesday that she plans to run for Greater Cleveland’s U.S. congressional district in 2022.
“When we look over the course of last year, families are still struggling — with higher gas and food prices, stagnant wages and shrinking benefits, while corporations make record profits," Turner said in a news release from her campaign. "We can get an agenda through Congress that puts working families first but it is being blocked by a handful of holdouts. Obstruction of the Democratic agenda is hurting Greater Cleveland and as the next Congresswoman, I am going to fight back.”
Turner's announcement is expected to set up a rematch against Brown, who went on to easily win the seat in the November general election. The seat became open after longtime Rep. Marcia Fudge became secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Last year's primary attracted national attention, with Sanders, the Independent senator from Vermont, stumping for Turner last summer in Akron.
The race was seen as a battle between an establishment candidate — Brown, a Biden supporter endorsed by Hillary Clinton — and a progressive candidate not afraid to criticize the party — Turner, a Sanders supporter endorsed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Turner — a former Cleveland City Council member, state senator for Ohio’s 25th district in the Cleveland area and chair of party engagement for the Ohio Democratic Party — supported Sanders in his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020 and was national co-chair of his 2020 campaign.
“I want people to know Nina is one of the smartest and hardest-working people I know,” Sanders said last summer. "...She understands from the depths of her soul the need for justice, whether it’s economic, social, racial or environmental justice.”
The safely Democratic 11th district, which has a population made up of about 53% Black residents, currently includes a large swath of Cuyahoga County, including Cleveland, and a sliver of Summit County, reaching through the northern part of the county, through Richfield village and township, Bath Township and Fairlawn, and into Akron, including downtown Akron, Sherbondy Hill and West Akron.
In last year's primary, Turner earned 46 more votes than Brown — a former Cuyahoga County Council member and chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party — in Summit County (3,262 for Turner to Brown’s 3,216). But Brown earned 35,289 votes to Turner’s 30,977 votes in Cuyahoga County.
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Turner is unable to announce the exact district she plans to run for this time around because the state's congressional maps aren't yet final, although she said it will be "the newly redistricted Cleveland-based seat."
The Ohio Supreme Court on Jan. 14 struck down the map of the state's congressional districts, saying it violated partisan gerrymandering prohibitions and favored the Republican Party.
The map invalidated by the state's high court reapportioned the Greater Cleveland district so that it no longer reached into Akron. The decision reopens the possibility that Turner and Brown could once again need to court some Summit County voters as their potential constituents.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is tasked with drawing and now redrawing the maps, has not yet started the process for the congressional districts map, instead working on redrawing the maps for the state house and senate.
Five of its seven members — all Republicans, with the two Democrats voting no — approved a second round of state house and senate maps Saturday. They've already drawn objections, with the plaintiffs asking the Ohio Supreme Court to again find them unconstitutional.
Contact Beacon Journal reporter Emily Mills at emills@thebeaconjournal.com and on Twitter @EmilyMills818.