Democrat Nina Turner filed paperwork Monday with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) that would allow her to run for Congress again, according to cleveland.com.
Turner filed FEC paperwork – called a “statement of candidacy” – that does not oblige her to run for office after Ohio redraws its district maps, the news outlet reported.
#BREAKING: @ninaturner has filed to run for OH-11 Congressional seat once again in 2022 pic.twitter.com/GQmikNbdym
— Jordan (@JordanChariton) September 27, 2021
A former aide for Turner told The Cleveland Scene that the paperwork filing was a “procedural move.”
“Nina has not made any decision,” the former aide said. “She had a couple of options in terms of what to do with the committee, and the easiest and most flexible is to keep it open. It would be the lightest lift in terms of finances and staffing if she does run again.”
Turner, who is a former Ohio state representative, told The Intercept in an interview last week that she has not decided if she will run again, but the move keeps “all the options on the table.”
Also, the former lawmaker told The Intercept that she thought a normal election would have been easier to win than a special election.
“Oh, I do! Because, first of all, when you got 435 seats, as we are going to have in 2022, plus the Senate seats that are up, you can’t concentrate all that firepower on only one seat,” Turner said.”
Turner added, “The turnout would have been different; we would have more college students who rock with people like me and the progressive movement. That was missing. You would have more people who are going to come out and participate.”
In the August special election, Shontel Brown received 51 percent of the votes compared to Turner’s 44 percent.
The Democratic primary race between Brown and Turner received national attention. Brown was considered the establishment candidate while Turner was viewed as the progressive candidate.
Brown blamed her loss on the amount of money spent on the race.
“I am going to work hard to ensure that something like this never happens to a progressive candidate again,” she said in her concession speech. “We didn’t lose this race – the evil money manipulated and maligned this election.”
According to opensecrets.org, candidates in the special election for Ohio’s Eleventh Congressional District received over $6 million in donations.
During the race, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC-06), who is the third highest-ranking Democrat in Congress, endorsed Brown over Turner.
Clyburn criticized Turner’s position on defunding the police.
“What I try to do is demonstrate by precept and example how we are to proceed as a party,” he said when he endorsed Brown. “When I spoke out against sloganeering, like ‘Burn, baby, burn’ in the 1960s and ‘defund the police,’ which I think is cutting the throats of the party, I know exactly where my constituents are. They are against that, and I’m against that.”
In November, Brown will face off against Republican primary winner Laverne Gore. The winner of this election will represent Ohio’s 11th Congressional District that became vacant after President Joe Biden chose Marica Fudge to lead the Housing and Urban Development.
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Zachery Schmidt is the Digital Editor of Star News Digital Media. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected]. Follow Zachery on Twitter @zacheryschmidt2.
Photo “Nina Turner” by DarrellNance. CC BY-SA 4.0.
