• David Gedert, a drag queen known as Sugar Vermonte, is running for Congress in Ohio’s 9th District as a libertarian.
• Gedert’s campaign began after he criticized Republican state Rep. Josh Williams, who sponsored a bill to restrict some drag performances.
• Gedert will face the winner of the GOP primary and incumbent Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in the general election.
• The 9th District seat was recently redrawn to be more Republican in an effort to oust Kaptur, who is the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress.

It started with a Facebook post.

David Gedert − also known as the drag queen Sugar Vermonte − criticized Republican state Rep. Josh Williams on the page for his Toledo food truck, Maybe Cheese Born With It. Williams, who is running for Congress in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, has sponsored legislation to criminalize certain drag performances.

The Lucas County Libertarian Party responded, “SUGAR FOR CONGRESS!” And a campaign was born.

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Gedert announced that he’s running as a libertarian in the 9th District, which includes Toledo and swaths of northwest Ohio. Current Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest serving woman in Congress, faces an uphill battle after lawmakers made the district more Republican in the latest round of redistricting.

Williams, former state Rep. Derek Merrin and Air Force veteran Alea Nadeem will face off in the GOP primary in May.

“The two-party system that pretends to work for us is ridiculous,” Gedert told the statehouse bureau. “We have to stop pretending that it’s working. We all recognize that it’s broken in one way or another, but someone has to stand up.”

Who is David Gedert, a.k.a. Sugar Vermonte?

Gedert grew up in a Detroit suburb, but he moved to Toledo at age 17 after both of his parents died. His resume includes a bit of everything: drag queen, Realtor, McDonald’s corporate manager and paraeducator for children with autism.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Gedert said, he bought a camper and some pink paint and opened Maybe Cheese Born With It. He then landed on the Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race and took second place.

Gedert said he’s always been politically engaged and evolved from a registered Democrat to independent. When the Libertarian Party contacted him about a bid for Congress, he reviewed the platform and said it aligns with much of what he believes.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Jon Husted questioned witnesses at a Senate hearing Wednesday about cases where men allegedly slipped mifepristone to women without their consent, citing examples from Ohio and Texas to argue for reinstating in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion drug.

“I’ve seen some of the horrors of men who are trying to use the drug to end pregnancies against the will of the woman that they give the drug to,” Husted told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during its hearing titled “Protecting Women’s Health: Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs.”

“This is not the choice of a woman controlling her own body,” he said.

Ohio case among examples cited

Husted presented two cases to illustrate his concerns, including one where Toledo-area doctor Hassan-James Abbas was indicted after he was accused of obtaining the drug from an out-of-state telemedicine provider and used it to secretly end his girlfriend’s pregnancy.

Abbas is accused of ordering mifepristone and misoprostol after the woman said she didn’t want an abortion by using his estranged wife’s identity and then forcing them into the woman’s mouth while she slept. His license to practice medicine has been suspended.

Husted also cited a 2025 Texas case where a man is accused of obtaining mifepristone and slipping it into the hot chocolate of a woman he had impregnated, and who was refusing to get an abortion.

Senator’s personal connection

Husted opened his questioning by sharing his own adoption story, which he has discussed publicly before.

“I started out in foster care, was adopted, and know that my birth mother was under a lot of pressure to have an abortion, and thankfully for me, she didn’t,” the Republican senator said. “I know that my biological father had pressured her to do so, and she chose an adoption.”

He said reflecting on his background made him question whether he would exist today if mifepristone had been as easily accessible when his birth mother was pregnant. “I would like to think that my birth mother would have still chosen to have an adoption, but I’ve seen some of the horrors of men who are trying to use the drug to end pregnancies against the will of the woman that they give the drug to,” he said.

Question of access vs. safety

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a witness at the hearing, told Husted that putting an in-person dispensing requirement in place would address the problem.

Murrill responded that Louisiana believes “putting the in-person dispensing requirement back in place would substantially protect women.” She noted that Louisiana has placed the drugs on its state controlled substances list “so that we can track who’s prescribing them and make sure that there’s some accountability for the use of these medications.”

The hearing featured sharply contrasting testimony about mifepristone’s safety and the impact of FDA regulations governing its distribution.

In her written testimony, Murrill argued that the Biden administration’s 2023 decision to remove in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone was “not a legal or medically-informed decision, but a purely political one.”

She presented cases from Louisiana where she said women were harmed by mail-order abortion drugs, including a teenager allegedly coerced by her mother and cases where women experienced medical emergencies.

Testimony from Dr. Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, an Adjunct Professor, Indiana University School of Medicine, outlined various complications associated with medication abortion and argued that “telemedicine abortion” and “self-administered abortion are unsafe and endanger women.”

However, Dr. Nisha Verma of Physicians for Reproductive Health stated that “the science on mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness is longstanding and settled,” noting the drug “has been rigorously researched and proven safe and effective in hundreds of high-quality, peer-reviewed studies.”

She testified that serious adverse events with medication abortion “are very rare, consistently occurring in well under one percent of cases.”

People like to say America doesn’t make things anymore. Some folks even believe that’s a good thing. There’s no better way to prove them wrong than a trip to the Ohio cities of Clyde and Marion. As our nation seeks to bring more production back home, Northwest Ohio is living proof that — with a talented workforce, a level playing field and business leaders committed to the local economy — the best days for American manufacturing are yet to come.

Even as some companies took factories and jobs overseas, manufacturing has remained the beating heart of the Buckeye State. Across Ohio, manufacturing is responsible for nearly a fifth of our state’s GDP. The manufacturing sector here has been steadily growing over the last several years, now employing more than 680,000 workers. Since the pandemic, Ohio has added 100,000 manufacturing jobs, and the sector now boasts the highest payroll of any industry in the state.

This resurgence is particularly visible in our communities. In November, we were honored to stand alongside Whirlpool Corp. as it marked its 114th anniversary after announcing a $300 million investment in its U.S. laundry operations in both Clyde and Marion the prior month. That investment will create up to 600 new jobs between our two cities, and it sends a clear message that reaches far beyond Ohio: America still knows how to build.

In Clyde, you see that pride in people like Mike Monday, who has worked at the plant for 45 years without missing a single day. Or Jason Alejandro, a third-generation Whirlpool employee who joined the company after eight years serving in the U.S. Air Force and just celebrated his 19th anniversary at the Clyde factory.

In Marion, it lives in the lives of nearly 2,000 employees, including Angel Siebold, a single mother who started wiring machines on the shop floor 22 years ago and has been promoted through the ranks to where she now leads operations at the company’s second-largest facility. Her story, like so many others in Ohio, shows how opportunity grows when companies invest in people and people invest back.

None of this is an accident. Clyde and Marion have spent decades building the foundation where manufacturing can thrive. We’ve built infrastructure that helps keep supply chains moving and workers connected. Our regional partnerships — with JobsOhio, One Columbus, and the Regional Growth Partnership — helped make this investment possible.

Our goal has been simple: Create places where industry and people can grow together. We’ve focused on creating a smart, sustainable economic environment that good employers want to be a part of, so they can hire our neighbors, invest in our communities and give our kids a reason to stay. Companies like Whirlpool have noticed that commitment and met it with their own.

That’s the ripple effect of trust between companies and communities. When a company puts down roots and keeps faith with its people, those roots deepen. Loyalty, earned over decades, pays dividends in skill, reliability and pride.

Clyde and Marion are proud to be part of that story and determined to keep writing it. Our communities and partners stand as proof that American manufacturing is not fading, but a cornerstone that supports families and sustains our country’s promise.

In an age when so much feels uncertain, we still believe that when America builds at home, we create hope and opportunity. If you want to know where manufacturing is headed, look to Clyde, Marion and the places across Ohio where it never left.

Doug McCauley is the mayor of Clyde, Ohio, and Bill Collins is the mayor of Marion, Ohio.

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