The 6th Congressional District is a Republican stronghold.

In last year’s presidential election, Republican Donald Trump got 66.4% of the district’s vote to 32.8% for Democrat Kamala Harris with other candidates picking up 0.8%. So Trump beat Harris by 33.6%.

In that same election, U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, got 66.7% of the vote to 33.4% for Democrat Michael L. Kripchak of Youngstown. Rulli won by 33.3%.

Kripchak said he will again challenge Rulli in the 2026 election and Democrat Malcolm Ritchie of Dover has filed a statement with the Federal Election Commission to run for the seat.

Redistricting could have a slight impact on the district’s makeup with the 2026 election, but it won’t change the fact that it will still heavily favor Republicans.

If Rulli is to face a serious challenger in the 2026 Republican primary — and I’m skeptical that will occur — it would come from someone more tied to Trump than the incumbent.

That could be a possible explanation for Rulli’s introduction earlier this month of a resolution designating July 13 as “Faith and Defiance Day” to honor what he called Trump’s “unshakable courage in the face of life-threatening hatred” during a July 13, 2024, assassination attempt when he was campaigning in Butler, Pa.

It shows Rulli’s total loyalty to Trump.

In the 11-county 6th District, Mahoning is by far the most-populous county. The county is considerably more Republican since Trump was first elected president in 2016.

Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman Chris Anderson, a vocal critic of Rulli, said, “While we’re facing a net migration crisis that’s on pace to make us the Alabama of the north, it’s truly embarrassing that this is the type of (expletive) Mike and his party spend time on and they wonder why young people flee our state. I’ve never seen someone’s lips so firmly attached to someone’s ass. Make someone’s life better. What a (expletive) moron. This hero worship has to end.”

Rulli’s resolution “condemns all acts of political violence, regardless of target or motive,” honors a man killed and two who were injured in the assassination attempt, commends those who prevented further harm and praises Trump for continuing “his ‘fight, fight, fight’ for what is best for the United States of America, resilient in his faith and defiant in the face of wickedness.”

Much of the resolution’s language focuses on Trump, stating the president “rightfully stated God alone prevented the unthinkable from happening” and honors him for winning the 2024 presidential election, including “every swing state” — as if that has anything to do with Trump surviving the shooting.

The bill was referred to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The committee’s membership includes some of Trump’s biggests Republican supporters including Jim Jordan of Ohio, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Paul Gosar of Arizona.

Mace, Greene and Boebert recently co-sponsored a bill to release information about child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, an issue Trump would like to see go away. But they all voted last week against a Democratic effort to force a vote on releasing Epstein’s file and have been very loyal to the president.

Gosar introduced legislation in June 2024 to have Trump’s face on the $500 bill.

In all likelihood, Rulli’s “Faith and Defiance Day” resolution, like Gosar’s $500 bill proposal, will go nowhere.

In a prepared statement about the bill, Rulli said: “The whole world was watching on July 13, 2024, when President Trump was shot and fell to the ground. We were all holding our breath, unsure of what had happened. In that moment, there wasn’t a person on earth prepared for what came next. A bullet struck our president and he stood up, fist raised, telling us all to ‘fight, fight, fight.'”

He added: “That is the American spirit — faithful, defiant and unstoppable. You see one or two events in your life that inspire you to be more than you are, that strike you to your core. This was one of them. God saved the president that day and that’s something worth recognizing for the rest of time.”

While campaigning for president in Butler, Trump was shot and wounded in his upper right ear by a 20-year-old assassin who fired eight rounds from a semi-automatic rifle. The assassin killed Corey Comperatore, who died while shielding his wife and two daughters, and injured two others before he was killed by Secret Service agents.

Six Secret Service agents at the scene were suspended for security failures.

David Skolnick covers politics for the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator.