Joe Blystone is a self-described constitutional conservative whose run for the Republican gubernatorial nomination stems largely from his anger at Ohio governments’ response to COVID-19.

“All this authorities overreach has to cease,” he stated.

By that Blystone means, not less than partly, early-pandemic orders to briefly shut nonessential companies the place individuals gathered in shut quarters.

He accused DeWine of “work(ing) in opposition to the individuals in desirous to steal our rights.”

“One barn-burner that may be very vibrant proper now could be particular person well being autonomy,” Blystone stated, by which he means prohibiting any requirement to get a COVID-19 vaccination or inform anybody whether or not you’ve got.

“It needs to be your selection and your selection solely,” he stated.

Blystone stated he obtained childhood vaccinations however refused to say if he has been vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 — calling the query “Nazi Germany stuff.”

Masks necessities for college students had been a “heinous abuse of our kids” that scientific knowledge doesn’t help, he stated.

A nationwide research by Yale researchers, printed in January, discovered masks necessities for youngsters lower faculty closures resulting from COVID-19 outbreaks by 13%. A research of Arkansas faculty districts by the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, printed in January, discovered these with common masks necessities had 23% fewer COVID-19 circumstances than districts that didn’t.

Blystone, 53, was born in East Liverpool and based Blystone Farm in 2004. That features a steakhouse, market, butcher store, bakery and occasion venue, using greater than 70. He based the nonprofit Agricultural Neighborhood Inc. to coach about meals and farming in 2019.

“I’m like the vast majority of people right here on this state,” Blystone stated. “We work arduous, we attempt to deal with our households, we run our companies or work exterior the house. We simply need to be left alone to do what we do on this nice nation.”

Blystone has by no means run for workplace earlier than. His operating mate is Marion native and fellow political novice Jeremiah Workman, an writer, Marine Corps veteran and former IT employee. In January Workman changed Blystone’s former operating mate, Canton restaurant proprietor Joanna Swallen, who dropped out in October.

Jaclyn Mims has identified Blystone since 2018, and since January 2020 has dealt with social media, advertising and marketing and occasions for Blystone Farm.

“I really like working for Joe,” Mims stated. “I’d not say Joe is an ideal individual, however Joe is someone who has coronary heart and goes for it. If he sees one thing that’s incorrect, he’ll be the primary one who will repair it.”

Mims described Blystone as hard-working, normally on the job earlier than she arrived at 6 a.m. He’s a great chief, devoted and a great listener, she stated.

“He’s misunderstood so much,” Mims stated. “Lots of people don’t actually give him the possibility to get to know him.”

Mims stated Blystone “has a coronary heart for teenagers” and loves to show them about farming.

Bystone stated he stands for “what’s proper, what’s Godly,” and needs to “put the ability again into the individuals’s palms.”

He stated he has publicly declared he received’t settle for cash from PACs, SuperPACs, nonprofits, cash from unknown sources or “with strings hooked up.”

Blystone stated he would appoint individuals to state departments who “have the identical ideologies, that need to work for the individuals.”

“The particular pursuits can be gone,” he stated. Too many present appointees are working to “pad their life and their pockets,” Blystone stated.

As for getting his agenda via the Normal Meeting, “I’m simply going to take Trump’s playbook,” Blystone stated. “He tell us the place the roadblocks had been.”

Mike DeWine

Incumbent Gov. Mike DeWine stated he needs one other four-year time period to develop the long-term agenda he specified by the yr earlier than COVID-19 hit. He reiterated a number of of these initiatives throughout his State of the State speech in March.

“I’m operating for reelection as governor to finish the work that we began,” DeWine stated.

Because the pandemic wanes, Ohio is transferring ahead economically, resulting from a great enterprise local weather with low taxes and affordable laws, he stated.

DeWine pointed to Intel’s announcement final yr that it’s going to construct two laptop chip factories northeast of Columbus, a $20 billion venture. That can be augmented by the relocation or growth of Intel’s suppliers, as occurred following Honda’s 1977 announcement that it could construct factories in Ohio, he stated.

DeWine, 75, was born in Springfield. After attending Miami College and Ohio Northern College’s regulation faculty, he labored as an assistant prosecutor in Greene County till his 1976 election as county prosecutor.

Elected to the Ohio Senate in 1980, he served till 1982, when he was elected to the U.S. Home district southwest of Cleveland and Akron. DeWine held that seat till 1991, when he was elected lieutenant governor underneath Gov. George Voinovich.

DeWine resigned that workplace on his 1994 election to the U.S. Senate. He was reelected senator in 2000, however in 2006 misplaced to present Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Barbara Mills of Beavercreek was DeWine’s state director throughout his time within the U.S. Senate.

“I met the DeWines in November of 1992,” she stated. Mills went to their Cedarville house for her job interview, and located the home full of youngsters.

“That has form of been the theme of their life,” she stated. “He doesn’t have a number of hobbies exterior of his public service, and if he can’t do it together with his spouse and his household, then he doesn’t do it.”

Elected Ohio lawyer normal in 2010, DeWine held that place till his 2018 election as governor. For 2022 he retains his 2018 operating mate, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.

DeWine had been governor for a yr when the pandemic started. Early on he shut down in-person faculties, eating places and shops, later issued a statewide masks mandate and imposed different restrictions to gradual the unfold of COVID-19. He was suggested by Dr. Amy Acton, then director of the Ohio Division of Well being, however she stepped down in summer time 2020 after backlash from Republican legislators. Subsequently, legislators gave themselves the ability to cancel any additional well being orders.

“Despite the fact that the legislature and I’ve not all the time agreed on the whole lot, this legislature has been very supportive of the foremost initiatives that we’ve got positioned in entrance of them,” DeWine stated.

He cited the Normal Meeting’s help of H2Ohio, a decade-long water high quality effort that was allotted $172 million for its first two years. Legislators understood the necessity to shield Lake Erie for recreation and to supply ingesting water for 3 million Ohioans, DeWine stated.

Barbara Mills stated DeWine is considerate, low-key and devoted to his job.

“You can not outwork Mike DeWine,” she stated.

DeWine stated the state has put extra money into early childhood growth, help to pregnant girls, and schooling — defining schooling broadly, from prenatal care to state-paid superior coaching for late-career staff.

“However we’ve got a methods to go,” he stated.

Topping his agenda for the subsequent 4 years is bigger state funding in psychological well being to dramatically speed up community-based psychological well being providers.

“No state has lived as much as the dedication that was made within the ‘60s,” he stated. “As we deinstitutionalized individuals, turned them out into the neighborhood, the promise was that we might have the help they wanted in no matter neighborhood they lived in.”

DeWine stated he’ll additionally name for development of statewide high-speed web, particularly for the Appalachian area. That may be coupled with extra water and sewer infrastructure cash for Appalachian communities.

“We nonetheless have locations in Ohio the place they’re trucking water in to residents,” he stated.

DeWine stated he’ll suggest creation of a devoted fund to supply annual coaching for police, particularly for small-town departments that may’t afford it.

“There must be an actual emphasis on what’s known as scenario-based coaching, which is sort of the ‘shoot and don’t-shoot’ situations,” he stated.

DeWine has urged the revival of a 2-year-old invoice cosponsored by state Rep. Phil Plummer, R-Dayton, that may haven’t solely created sustained funding however would monitor police use of power and self-discipline.

He stated the state has designated $250 million for communities to create their very own native applications. In December, DeWine introduced that quantity from federal American Rescue Plan funds could be obtainable for grants to police and different first responders.

Ron Hood

Former state Rep. Ron Hood and his operating mate, former state Rep. Candice Keller, describe themselves on their marketing campaign web site as “Perpetually Trumpers.”

Their marketing campaign didn’t reply to requests for remark, so the next is compiled from earlier media stories and the candidates’ acknowledged positions.

Hood, 52, a Circleville resident, graduated from Ohio State College and has labored as a advertising and marketing marketing consultant for American Manner Funding Corp.

He has run unsuccessfully for state Home and Senate, and U.S. Home seats. Hood has received election to the Ohio Home, holding a seat southwest of Chillicothe from 1995 to 2000 and 2005 to 2006; and a seat northeast of Chillicothe from 2013 to 2020.

Hood and Keller have a report of across-the-board opposition to abortion and COVID-19 precautions, and help for looser gun legal guidelines.

They tout their sponsorship of a “heartbeat invoice” to outlaw abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detectable — typically round six weeks, earlier than many ladies know they’re pregnant.

Hood and Keller collectively launched such a invoice throughout the overlap of their state legislative phrases. It died in a Home committee, however a Senate model handed. The invoice’s implementation has been blocked by a federal court docket.

Though former President Donald Trump received Ohio by an 8-point margin in 2020, Hood and Keller need to conduct a “forensic audit” of the 2020 election. Republicans have completed so in a number of states, with none turning up vital proof of voter fraud.

Their marketing campaign web site pledges to ban the educating of essential race principle, in major faculties and state faculties.

Final yr some Ohio Republican legislators sought to go payments in opposition to educating essential race principle, however these they continue to be in committee. They seek advice from educating “divisive ideas,” dealing primarily with race, gender and particular subjects in U.S. historical past corresponding to slavery.

Vital race principle is the tutorial idea that racism is not only particular person prejudice, however is constructed into authorized and social programs. If taught in any respect it typically seems in faculty programs; however claims that CRT is taught to babies have made it a hot-button concern nationwide. Opponents denounce the bans as an try to suppress dialogue of reliable points.

Jim Renacci

FILE – On this Oct. 31, 2018, file picture, U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio speaks on the Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport in Mansfield, Ohio. Renacci, a former four-term congressman from northeast Ohio, plans to tackle Gov. Mike DeWine in subsequent yr’s Republican major. (AP Picture/Tony Dejak, File)

Credit score: Tony Dejak

Advertisement

Credit score: Tony Dejak

FILE – On this Oct. 31, 2018, file picture, U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio speaks on the Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport in Mansfield, Ohio. Renacci, a former four-term congressman from northeast Ohio, plans to tackle Gov. Mike DeWine in subsequent yr’s Republican major. (AP Picture/Tony Dejak, File)

Credit score: Tony Dejak

Credit score: Tony Dejak

Enterprise and political success haven’t modified Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci, in keeping with Ron Paydo of Wadsworth

“The group of mates he had 30 years in the past, he nonetheless has as we speak,” stated Paydo, neighborhood president and devoted group supervisor for Huntington Nationwide Financial institution.

Renacci, 63, is initially from Pennsylvania the place he graduated from Indiana College of Pennsylvania. He was on Wadsworth Metropolis Council from 1999 to 2003, and was Wadsworth mayor from 2004 to 2008.

Elected to the U.S. Home in 2010, he represented the district southwest of Cleveland till 2019. In 2018 Renacci introduced a run for governor, however as an alternative ran for U.S. Senate. He misplaced to Democratic incumbent Brown.

Renacci’s operating mate for 2022 is Christian film producer and motivational speaker Joe Knopp, who has no political expertise however has made a documentary supporting former President Donald Trump.

In 2020 Renacci commissioned a research from researchers on the College of Akron and Ball State College. It concludes Ohio ought to put money into all ranges of schooling, increase small enterprise as an alternative of wooing huge producers, diversify the economic system and decrease common households’ taxes. High quality of life is a dominant consider drawing individuals and jobs, however in 2018 Ohio ranked forty fifth within the nation on that rating, the report stated.

Renacci stated he doesn’t totally blame incumbent DeWine.

“We have now been going on this route for the previous 25 years,” he stated. “We proceed to have Twentieth-century financial insurance policies within the twenty first century.”

Ohio taxes and spends an excessive amount of, Renacci stated, has too many laws and ranks low for enterprise friendliness. He stated Ohio must be extra household pleasant to draw individuals. Renacci stated spending needs to be lower to ranges comparable with surrounding states, and the tax code modified to make Ohio extra aggressive.

Over time Renacci purchased and operated a number of nursing houses. He additionally purchased a troubled automotive dealership in Wadsworth, saving 50 native jobs, Paydo stated.

“He’s been in a position all through his profession to enter robust conditions on the enterprise facet and switch issues round,” he stated.

As a longtime enterprise proprietor Renacci is aware of what it’s like to determine a finances and meet payrolls, Paydo stated.

“Operating a state is like operating a enterprise, and Jim has run a number of companies very, very efficiently,” he stated.

Renacci additionally has plans for public schooling, however to not enhance spending.

“I’m going to ask the legislature to get rid of (essential race principle), SEL (social and emotional studying) and complete intercourse schooling on the similar time,” he stated.

The variety of faculty districts and state faculties needs to be checked out intently as public faculty enrollment declines, Renacci stated.

“I’m not saying we’ve got to get rid of them, however we’ve got to begin our overhead,” he stated.

Renacci stated he doesn’t advocate the Backpack Invoice, Home Invoice 290, however is for “one thing related.” That invoice, launched final Might and now in a Home committee, would divert public faculty funding to pay for youngsters to attend non-public faculties. Public educators have decried it as a approach to defund public schooling and warn that it lacks oversight of spending.

Renacci criticizes the quantity Ohio spends on Medicaid: practically $35 billion in fiscal 2022. That quantity has elevated steadily for years. Medicaid covers about 3 million Ohioans, principally youngsters and the aged; about two-thirds of its price is paid from federal funds.

Ohio ought to deal with youngsters, the aged and disabled, however ought to look to different states for tactics to chop prices, he stated.

Renacci stated he needs to strengthen police, privatize prisons, require a photograph ID to vote and maintain complete audits of voting programs.

“We shouldn’t be bringing unlawful aliens into this state. Refugees as nicely. We needs to be taking good care of our homeless veterans first,” he stated.

Immigrants dwelling right here illegally are estimated to make up about 1% of Ohio’s inhabitants. The state has accepted a median of fewer than 2,000 refugees per yr, however that’s more likely to enhance with President Joe Biden’s elevating of the federal cap on refugee admission.