Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) defeated J.R. Majewski, an endorsee of Donald Trump, in a battleground U.S. House race in Ohio on Nov. 8.
Kaptur, 76, is the longest-tenured woman in either chamber of Congress. She is closely aligned with President Joe Biden.
Kaptur won her first term in the U.S. House in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan was midway through his first term.
The 42-year-old Majewski built a career managing nuclear power plants and gained national acclaim when he painted a Trump 2020 sign in the yard of his Port Clinton home near the Lake Erie shoreline.
Majewski has been defending himself since September when The Associated Press reported that he misrepresented key elements of his Air Force service, including his claim that he was a combat veteran who served a tour in Afghanistan under “tough” circumstances.
He denied lying about his record, but the National Republican Campaign Committee canceled TV ads it had reserved to support his campaign.
Kaptur, a popular Democrat in her hometown of Toledo, seized on that and other questions about Majewski’s resume. She branded him as a past devotee of QAnon conspiracy theories who passed by police barricades during last year’s deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“I don’t believe there’s a time that I served in public life when I have seen the country divided as it is today,” she said. “This victory today in this particular district shows that the people, regardless if they’re Democrat, Republican, independent, can come together. They can come together if we give them good government, if we stay close to them and we don’t allow certain evil forces to impact their lives.”
Former president Donald Trump endorsed Majewski on June 5.
For a decade leading to the current election cycle, the 9th District covered 140 miles of Lake Erie’s coastline, including the Democratic strongholds of Toledo in northwest Ohio, and Cleveland in the state’s northeast corner.
Kaptur breezed to election victories, consistently securing more than 60 percent of the vote.
Now, after the most recent redistricting process, the 9th District includes Ohio’s rural northwestern corner, which Kaptur has never represented. Voters there are more conservative, while Cleveland is no longer in the district.
Kaptur was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) “Frontline” program for vulnerable House members.
