Those challenging the two incumbents who represent the Mahoning Valley — U.S. Reps. Dave Joyce, R-Bainbridge, and Michael Rulli, R-Salem — face tremendous odds to beat them.

Defeating a sitting member of the U.S. House is very difficult. With the power of incumbency comes name recognition and a considerable amount of money, largely provided by political action committees who know the reliable votes of those already serving in Congress, particularly for a long time.

OpenSecrets, a website that provides data and analysis of money in politics, also tracks the reelection rate of U.S. House members, writing: “Few things in life are more predictable than the chances of an incumbent member of the U.S. House of Representatives winning reelection.”

The reelection rate for incumbents in 2024 was 96.6%. It was 93.2% in 2022 and 94.7% in 2020.

With 51 House members not running this year for reelection and three vacancies, that leaves, at this point, 381 incumbents running for reelection though that could easily shrink.

If we use a 95% success rate for this year, that means fewer than 20 incumbents will lose their seats. Those are likely to be in highly competitive districts that are not drawn to heavily favor Republicans or Democrats. The other possibility is an incumbent could lose in his or her own political party’s primary.

While it’s a huge climb to defeat an incumbent House member, it didn’t stop a lot of candidates, both Republican and Democratic, from filing to challenge Joyce and Rulli.

In the 14th Congressional District, which Joyce has represented for seven two-year terms, Republicans Niki Frenchko of Warren, a former Trumbull County commissioner, and Mark Zetzer of Russell, who turned in nominating petitions in 2024 for the position and then withdrew, filed to challenge Joyce in the GOP primary.

On the Democratic side, Bill O’Neill of Chagrin Falls, a former Ohio Supreme Court justice and 11th District Court of Appeals judge who has twice lost elections for the 14th Congressional District seat, along with Carl Setzer of Moreland Hills, a restaurant owner, and Maria Jukic, a former Euclid City Council member, filed.

The district includes all of Trumbull and is adding a small part of Mahoning counties with this election. It favors Republicans 58.5% to 41.5% for Democrats based on partisan statewide voting results between 2016 to 2024, according to the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

Unless there is a huge Democratic wave this year, Joyce’s biggest obstacle will be the Republican primary.

With Joyce considered a moderate Republican by today’s standards, Frenchko and Zetzer will have to run to his right and tout their conservative values. But they have to get their message out.

Joyce has a lot of money to spend in the primary.

With carryover from previous campaigns, Joyce had $3,260,984 in his campaign fund as of Dec. 31.

In 2025, Joyce’s campaign raised $792,880 and spent $445,496.

Zetzer will likely raise nothing or very little.

Frenchko has the potential to raise money, but the May 5 Republican primary is less than three months away. That doesn’t give her much time as she didn’t file a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission until Jan. 16.

She would need to raise about $500,000 in short order to give Joyce a contest. Even so, Joyce could spend $2 million on the primary without even coming close to drying out his campaign surplus.

On the Democratic side, O’Neill has, by far, the strongest name recognition. O’Neill said he won’t accept any money for his campaign.

In the 6th District, Rulli will face a Republican challenge from Jullie Kelley of Monroe, who ran in 2023 for a trustee position in her Carroll County township, finishing last with 9% of the vote.

Six Democrats are running for that party’s nomination for the seat in a solid Republican congressional district.

They are Sean Connolly of Canfield, Malcolm Ritchie of Dover, Adrian Vitus of Poland, Brent Hanni of Youngstown, Charles DiPalma of Steubenville and Elizabeth Kirtley of New Philadelphia.

Most have never run for elected office before. DiPalma unsuccessfully ran for an Ohio House seat in 2022, getting 28.7% of the vote.

Also, Christopher Lafont of Bethesda is running as a write-in in the Democratic primary.

Rulli was first elected in June 2024 to the House in a special election for an unexpired term. He is currently serving his first full two-year term.

Rulli did well raising money in 2025, getting a total of $746,331, which is comparable to what Joyce collected during the year. Rulli ended up spending $544,580.60 last year, which is almost $100,000 more than Joyce reported in expenditures for 2025.

Unlike Joyce, Rulli’s been in the U.S. House for a short time so he hasn’t had years to build up his campaign war chest. As of Dec. 31, he had $309,810 in his fund.

But it would be surprising if any of Rulli’s challengers raised what the incumbent had in surplus at the end of 2025 for their entire campaign.

With congressional redistricting, the 6th is losing a small part of Mahoning, which is the second-most populous county behind Stark.

The 6th District favors Republicans 63.9% to 36.1% for Democrats based on partisan statewide voting results between 2016 and 2024, according to the redistricting commission.

David Skolnick covers politics for the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator