Democrats Shontel Brown and Nina Turner face off again in redrawn 11th congressional district; Eric Brewer and James Hemphill seek GOP nod

LAKEWOOD, Ohio — The progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic party are duking it out for the second time in less than a year to decide who will get to represent Ohio’s most reliably Democratic congressional district.

Former Ohio Sen. Nina Turner of Cleveland, who co-chaired Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and peppers fiery speeches with her “hello somebody” catchphrase — is taking another shot at the congressional seat that U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown of Warrensville Heights won in a special election last year. Brown, a former Cuyahoga County Council member who chairs the county Democratic party, won 50.2 percent of the vote during their last matchup, while Turner captured 44.5 percent. Brown easily defeated Republican Laverne Gore in the November general election.

Turner hopes the district’s new boundaries results in a new outcome on May 3. When the Ohio Redistricting Commission redrew the 11th district’s congressional map, it dropped portions of Summit County it once encompassed and added parts of Cuyahoga County that weren’t in the old district, such as Lakewood and sections of the Hillcrest area.

What hasn’t changed is the district’s lopsidedly Democratic composition. Dave’s redistricting app reckons around 78 percent of its voters are Democrats, the highest ratio of any district in the state. Whoever wins the Democratic primary is almost guaranteed to capture the seat in November, so Turner and Brown are in full-bore campaign mode, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to blitz mailboxes with campaign pamphlets, stake campaign signs on lawns, plaster highways with their billboards and urge their supporters to knock on the doors of Democratic voters.

Turner raised around $6 million for the special election, and Brown raised around $3 million. Their campaign budgets are still substantial, but it’s not drawing as much money as before. Few congressional seats were up for grabs last year, so there wasn’t much competition for donor dollars. This year, all 435 congressional seats are on the ballot. Federal Election Commission reports filed earlier this month showed that Brown raised $745,260 in the year’s first quarter, spent $186,851 and had $891,782 in the bank. Turner raised $609,323 in the quarter, spent $464,204, had $259,131 in the bank and owed $138,827 to vendors.

The Republicans in the race — former East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer and Cleveland Heights home remodeler James Hemphill — have a lower profile. Neither has filed Federal Election Commission reports to indicate they’ve raised money.

As she took a break from knocking on doors in Lakewood to sip a Starbucks Medicine Ball tea, Turner said roughly 30 percent of the district’s voters are new and should get a chance to weigh in on who will represent them in Congress. She hopes the field will tilt in her favor this time because the redrawn district includes all of Cleveland, where voters favored her over Brown during their last contest, and sections of the county that backed Sanders in the 2020 presidential campaign.

Turner also hopes the other contests on the ballot for offices like governor and U.S. Senate “will draw out a broader, more diverse swath of the Democratic base” than went to the polls in last year’s special election to fill the congressional seat vacated by Marcia Fudge’s departure to head the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Turner’s storefront campaign office on Detroit Avenue includes a mural of the Vermont Senator, and they both support a less incremental approach to change than candidates who defeated them. As she revved up a room full of campaign volunteers before they went out to knock on doors, her speech took on the cadence of a street preacher.

“We are in a time of crisis,” Turner said. “There’s a crisis in the city, a crisis in the state, a crisis in the nation and a crisis in the world. And those crises must be answered by public policy that helps to change the material conditions of the poor, the working poor and barely middle class. I am here to tell you today that you deserve so much better than what you are getting.

“The great Harriet Tubman once said, If you hear the dogs keep going, if you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there are people coming after you, keep going, and you want to taste the freedom, never stop, keep going. So that is the message today, that if you want a better community, we must keep going. If you want universal health care, we must keep going. If you want a living wage, we must keep going. If you want to deal with the immoral nature of predatory capitalism, we must keep going. If we want a better future, we cannot stop. We must keep going.”

Perks of incumbency

Brown is a Fudge protégé whose style is more collaborative than confrontational. She is using the advantages of incumbency in her latest contest, highlighting her votes for initiatives such as the bipartisan infrastructure law.

At a meeting of roughly a dozen members of the Hillcrest Democratic Club, she described how the infrastructure bill “will deliver essentially billions of dollars to Northeast Ohio, to help repair our roads or railways, our bridges, airports, ports, waterways, things that have been grossly neglected for decades.”

Brown also pitches her ability to work with Republicans in Congress, citing legislation she introduced with Zanesville GOP Rep. Troy Balderson to increase food bank donations. She argues that political stalemates aren’t productive and progress requires working collaboratively.

“There are things that actually happen in a bipartisan way, they just don’t get the attention that they deserve,” Brown told the group. “So while I can’t speak for the GOP, I do try to find ways to find little wins.”

Over the past month, a stream of federal officials appeared with Brown in her district, including Fudge, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. Brown has sewn up endorsements from Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, former U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Turner has been endorsed by figures including Sanders, former Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and former U.S. Rep. Mary Rose Oakar of Cleveland.

Brown says she has gained endorsements because of her “willingness to reach out” after her August win to seek support after the divisive primary. She says she was able to pull ahead from the field last year through hard work and her years of toil in Cleveland area politics.

“I think those relationships and that proven track record puts me in the best position to be able to continue the legacy that this seat represents,” said Brown.

Brown says she supports Medicare for all, banning assault weapons, requiring universal background checks for gun purchases and establishing a committee to study and develop a reparations proposal for African Americans over slavery. She also supports universal Pre-K, free community college for all, free four-year public college for families making under $125,000, some college debt cancellation for everyone and significant federal investments in pathways to the middle class that don’t require a four-year college degree.

“To deliver a brighter future, we need results, not rhetoric. We need solutions, not soundbites,” Brown told Cleveland’s City Club earlier this month. “We need a person who is focused on headway, not headlines.”

Although Brown hasn’t been in office long, Turner is already attacking her record. She says Brown is improperly taking credit for securing federal money for Cleveland-area projects that other legislators obtained before she took office. Brown’s camp says it’s legitimate for her to claim credit because she voted for the bills.

Turner also says it was inappropriate for Brown to remain chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party while she ran for Congress. Brown says the party didn’t endorse in the race, so there wasn’t a conflict. She also says she will relinquish the chairmanship later this year.

The Republicans

The race’s Republican candidates are grabbing fewer headlines than the Democrats. Brewer, a journalist who runs his own news website, served as East Cleveland mayor from 2006 to 2009. He lost his re-election bid after racy photographs of him surfaced shortly before election day. He also ran for Cleveland mayor in 2017. His latest election announcement said he’d work to counteract U.S. involvement in Ukraine’s war with Russia if he’s elected and criticized President Joe Biden for engaging the nation in a war “that has nothing to do with us.”

“Legislatively, and on the federal level, I will serve in Congress as a watchdog over the dollars my vote in the legislative authority appropriates to the 11th Congressional District,” Brewer said in a statement to The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com. He also pledged to fight against trade agreements that send jobs overseas.

“Constitutional (civil) rights are being violated in the 11th Congressional District as it pertains to criminal justice, housing foreclosures, criminalized housing ordinances and 3rd party tax lien sales,” Brewer says. “Privacy rights are being violated by officials using automatic license plate readers and searches of an inaccurate (National Crime Information Center) criminal records history database to establish probable cause. The FBI’s database is not supposed to be used to establish probable cause as the basis of a high-speed chase or traffic stop. Federal funds appropriated for the poor are being misappropriated to the greedy as laws are being violated to direct American Rescue Act funds away from the intended uses.”

Hemphill, a Cleveland Heights home remodeler making his first bid for elected office, says he turned his life around after spending nearly 70 months in prison for a 1990s drug trafficking charge and hopes to help constituents avoid similar paths. He said he realizes running for office as a Republican is an uphill battle in a heavily Democratic community but believes many African American voters have views in line with the Republican party. He argues he can be a bridge to bring them into the party.

He supports increasing education and training for tradespeople and believes it would help increase minority ownership of small businesses. He said he supports increasing economic and housing opportunities and criminal justice reforms that would allow parole for people who have spent decades in prison for nonviolent offenses.

“I believe as a representative, you should represent the community,” he says. “I am led by the community and what they think is best.”

Outside money

Although Turner raised more campaign money than Brown during their last contest, outside organizations spent more than $4.3 million during the campaign cycle to support Brown and oppose Turner. Those on Turner’s side of the contest spent around $970,000. A PAC associated with Democratic Majority for Israel was the biggest spender, dropping $2.5 million to benefit Brown, whom it viewed as more favorable to Israel than Turner.

Its ads against Turner highlighted her past controversial remarks about the Democratic party, such as comparing voting for Joe Biden to eating excrement, and suggested she would not be a team player.

During a recent online forum, Democratic Majority for Israel co-chairman Todd Richman described Brown as “a strong supporter of strengthening the U.S. Israel relationship.” Brown told the group that one of the first bills she supported in Congress would strengthen and expand agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

“I remain committed to advancing policies that promote the security of Israel and ensure progress towards peace in the region through American diplomacy, engagement and leadership,” said Brown. “Our relationship with Israel, our longtime democratic ally in the region has been and will always be mutually beneficial, and it is a partnership founded on our shared ideas and values.”

Turner decried the negative ads during her own appearance before Cleveland’s City Club. Turner said she represented a large Jewish population when she served in Ohio’s Senate. She told the City Club forum she believes Israel has a right to exist as a democratic nation, and she also believes in justice and security for Israel and Palestine.

“I fight for justice in all of its forms,” said Turner. “What was done to me last year should cause pause to everybody, no matter if they supported me or not. I think people should do everything to win but not anything to win.”

Turner argues the country’s real division in Congress is between those willing to stand up against special interests and those who are “only willing to accept incremental change for our community.” She told the group she supports Medicare for all, increasing the minimum wage, ending child poverty, addressing the rising cost of housing and rent, canceling student loan debt, pushing back against the assault on women’s reproductive health, and comprehensive immigration reform.

“Do we sacrifice the poor, the working poor and barely middle class to protect the ultra-wealthy or do we treat our people as America’s greatest asset and ensure everyone has a real chance to live a good life?” asked Turner. “These are unprecedented times, and our leaders can not settle for good enough. …. It is not good enough to vote the right way, to go along to get along. This district, one of the poorest in the nation, needs a changemaker in Washington that will fight every day to lift working families and be a fighter who gets results.”

The people will decide

As Turner walked down Clifton Boulevard in Lakewood with an entourage of campaign workers, people in cars flagged her down to chat. Retiree Archie Walker gave Turner a hug and said he was mad when she lost last year’s race to Brown.

“Let’s get little sister back,” said Walker, who regaled Turner with his memories of the 1966 Hough riots. “We all need to come together, all of us.”

When Turner knocked on the door of Lakewood’s Keith Dewey, he promised to vote for her. Dewey described himself as a “dyed in the wool” liberal and told Turner that Democrats are going into a knife fight against Republicans without being properly armed.

“We need to fight them harder,” Dewey said.

Others in the district said they plan to stick with Brown. As he picked up Brown campaign signs and literature in the parking lot of Shaker Heights Middle School, Shaker Heights council member Ifeolu Claytor said she was highly responsive to constituents as the county’s Democratic party chair and as a county council member.

“I see her as the next generation, a moderate who works well with others,” added campaign volunteer Fran Kalfatis of Cleveland.

Michael Okrent of Mayfield Heights, a Hillcrest Democratic Club member, said he would back Brown in the upcoming primary because she won the last election.

“I don’t like civil wars in the Democratic party,” said Okrent. “I understand about not giving up, but doing the right thing for a united front is important.

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