COLUMBUS, Ohio– U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes won re-election to a second term representing a northeastern Ohio district targeted by Republicans, but fellow Democrat Marcy Kaptur’s race remained too early to call Wednesday.
Sykes, 38, defeated Republican Kevin Coughlin in a district surrounding her native Akron, where she comes from a family steeped in state politics. Her father, Vern, is a sitting state senator and her mother, Barbara, is a former state legislator and statewide candidate.
“I would like to congratulate Congresswoman Sykes on her re-election,” Coughlin tweeted Wednesday morning. “While the outcome is not what we hoped for, the values that drove this campaign – safety, security and affordability – will still motivate us to create change.”
Sykes is still awaiting a final decision on whether an 11th-hour challenge to her residency will proceed.
A political activist challenged her residency in the days before the election on the grounds that her husband, Franklin County Commissioner Kevin Boyce, had listed Sykes as a member of his Columbus household. Sykes called the accusation that she doesn’t live in Akron “a very insulting lie.”
Summit County Board of Elections 2-2 draw on party lines on October 24 on whether the challenge should be taken up. Council members had 14 days to submit the details of the disagreement to Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who will then, the law states, “shall decide the matter summarily.”
Kaptur, 78, had a slight lead over Ohio Secretary of State Derek Merrin and declared victory based on leading the vote count in the early hours of Wednesday, but The Associated Press did not call that race. Mail-in, overseas and military ballots can be returned until Saturday.
Kaptur entered the election cycle as one of the country’s most vulnerable sitting members of Congress. Her race for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District drew some $23 million in spending challenger Derek Merrina fourth-term state representative, received the support of both House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Speaker of the House Donald Trumpthe former and future president.
Her campaign credited her with overcoming “millions in outside spending from dark money super PACs,” and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee congratulated Kaptur for being “a proven champion for the Midwest.”
“If the longest-serving woman in CongressMarcy never forgot where she came from and never stopped fighting for Northwest Ohio,” President Suzan DelBene said in a statement. “She is a unique legislator, and leaders like her are few and far between. We are all better off with her in office.”
The two parties spent more than $23 million on ads on the race between the March 19 primary and Tuesday, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign spending. The Democrats had a small lead and spent more than $12 million against the Republicans, who earned $11 million. Merrin received more support from outside GOP groups than Kaptur, who spent about $3.7 million of her own campaign money on the race after the primaries.
A loss for Merrin would mark a rare failure of Trump’s support to carry a favored candidate to victory in the state, which he has won three times and stripped of his whistleblower status. It worked to elect both U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, now the vice president-elect, and Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who unseated incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown on Tuesday.