Examining key Valley races

November 13, 2020

Many of the races in the Mahoning Valley went under the radar this election because the presidency, as it does every four years, took center stage. But there are two races — one each in Mahoning and Trumbull counties — that I want to dive deeper here. The Trumbull County race had Commissioner Dan Polivka, who’s also the county Democratic Party chairman, lose to Republican Niki Frenchko. The Mahoning County race involved Probate Court Judge Robert N. Rusu Jr., an independent, narrowly defeating Republican David Lee Engler. In the Frenchko-Polivka race, there were a lot of ...

Valley GOP makes big strides

November 6, 2020

Most elected officials in Mahoning and Trumbull counties are Democrats, and that’s not likely to change for years. But advances Republicans have made here in just two elections are not only remarkable, but historic. Much credit goes to someone who hasn’t stepped foot in the Mahoning Valley in more than three years: Donald Trump. Until Trump came along, the two counties voted for the Democratic presidential candidate every four years since 1936, except for 1956 and 1972, the second terms of Republicans Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. The numbers were often huge with ...

Trump wins big in Valley funding

October 30, 2020

Nearly all of the attention in this election is on the presidential race. After all, it’s the main — and in some cases, the only — reason why people are voting this year. Mahoning Valley results should be interesting given that Donald Trump became only the third Republican since 1936 to win Trumbull County, beating Democrat Hillary Clinton by 6.22 percent in 2016. He also came close to being the third Republican to win Mahoning County, losing to Clinton by 3.28 percent. If he holds Trumbull and wins Mahoning this year, it will go a long way toward Trump emerging as victor ...

Tim Ryan faces formidable foe in Hagan

October 23, 2020

Before the 2012 election, Ohio Republican leaders divided the state into 16 congressional districts, purposely bunching large areas of Democratic voters into four specific districts and going to extreme lengths to create 12 that benefit their political party. Republicans gerrymandered the state making, at best, two of their districts slightly competitive so Democrats could have an outside chance of perhaps winning one or the other. However, a Democratic victory in any of those 12 districts has yet to happen. In 2008, when Ohio had 18 congressional districts, Democrats held 10 of the ...

Trump, Biden bypass Valley

October 16, 2020

With early voting underway in Ohio and less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 election, there’s a lot of political activity in the Mahoning Valley. But one thing we have yet to see in our area is a campaign visit from either the Republican or Democratic presidential or vice presidential candidates. If the Valley doesn’t get one, it would be the first time in decades we haven’t been a campaign stop. Yes, Vice President Mike Pence was at the June 25 unveiling of Lordstown Motors Corp.’s Endurance truck and touted the work of President Donald Trump, and later spoke at the ...

Conflict ramps up in local GOP

October 9, 2020

There is no love lost between Trumbull County Republican Party Chairman Kevin Wyndham and Niki Frenchko, a GOP candidate for county commissioner challenging incumbent Democrat Dan Polivka. While the friction between the two has been going on since before the primary, it’s hit a boiling point in the past few months. Frenchko raised numerous objections to the inclusion of Dennis Malloy — an independent taking on the other incumbent Democratic commissioner, Mauro Cantalamessa — on the Republican slate card. “The party is doing something unlawful, not right and not compliant ...