With two contested Statehouse races and one contested state Senate election, Akron-area residents have choices to make.
In Senate District 28, Sen. Vernon Sykes is finishing his second term and, due to term limits, is prohibited from seeking another. Vying to replace him are Rep. Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson, and Republican Jon Leissler.
RACE: Ohio Senate District 28
CANDIDATES: Casey Weinstein, Democrat; and Jon Leissler, Republican
Ohio’s Senate District 28 seat is vacant because incumbent Vernon Sykes can’t run again. The district includes Akron and parts of Summit County from Clinton to Hudson, including Fairlawn and part of Bath and Cuyahoga Falls.
One of the candidates vying for the seat, 42-year-old Rep. Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson, was first elected to the Ohio House in 2018. Then, he said, he ran on three words: Invest, fight and deliver.
In three terms representing House District 34, Weinstein said, he’s been able to provide community investments such as a regional fire training center in Cuyahoga Falls, repairs for Cascade Plaza, higher teacher salaries and local parks. He said he wants to be a partner in helping Akron grow.
Though his House district represented only a portion of the city, Weinstein said he treated all of Akron like it was part of his district. As a senator, he said he wants to focus on finding a fair way to pay for public schools, improving environmental protections and funding economic development efforts. Weinstein also said he would defend reproductive rights, if elected.
As a Democrat, Weinstein was in the minority in the legislature, but he said he prioritized finding coalitions in the House to help him advance his own priorities. He noted that he voted for all three budgets under consideration in his tenure, saying they weren’t the budgets he would have written but they contained “many critical wins.”
“Despite being in the super minority, I’m proud of the results,” he said. “I’ve been able to get stuff done.”
Weinstein said he wants to continue to operate in a “bipartisan and constructive way” in the Senate. He said his perspective and experience would be additive to the body.
Now the director of air and space business for ServiceNow, Weinstein is a former 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, where he served as a cybersecurity officer. He said he wants to close gaps and provide equal opportunities for all members of the district, adding that he’s in favor of statewide Issue 1, regarding gerrymandering.
“Politicians should not draw their own districts,” he said. “It’s just not a power politicians should have.”
Running against Weinstein, 43-year-old Jon Leissler said he wanted to contend for higher office after spending time on the Stow-Munroe Falls school board.
Leissler was elected to the board in 2021 and resigned in May; his term would have ended Jan. 1, 2026. He said he wanted to run for state Senate after realizing how much education policy is decided at the state level. Most of the time, he said, his answer to constituents was, “It’s out of our hands.”
🗳️For more on this year’s November election, visit our Election Signals 2024 page.
Leissler said since there wasn’t anything “big or controversial” going on with the board this summer, he decided to resign to spend the summer with his family and gear up for this election.
On the school board, Leissler, a Republican, said he was proud of efforts to make textbooks and other materials more available for parents. Some had concerns about “indoctrination” in classrooms, he said, but making teaching materials visible quelled some of the fears.
“I’m not seeing what these people are complaining about,” he said. “It was fear mongering.”
If elected, he’d like to see the legislature rethink how public schools are funded. Leissler said he is “real big on vouchers” but thinks public school funding needs to be a priority too. He did not have a proposal for what to do to balance funding for both.
Additionally, Leissler said he’d like to see the state income tax eliminated to make Ohio more attractive. He favors more sales and use taxes and a shift away from up-front tax incentives to lure jobs to Ohio.
He said he’d like to see legislation to hold people responsible for giving children access to guns, but added that he is not in favor of red flag laws that would restrict access to firearms for those dealing with mental health emergencies.
Leissler also said he wants to restrict transgender athletes in women’s sports. He said he’s in favor of restricting abortion access after a fetal heartbeat can be detected but said there should be exceptions. (Ohioans last year voted to overturn an abortion ban after six weeks and make abortion legal up to the point of viability.)
Leissler is the chief financial officer at 3B Holdings; he’s also a Stow resident. Leissler said he’s a “big, emphatic no” on Issue 1, which deals with gerrymandering. He said he’s concerned that a non-elected panel would not be accountable to voters.
