Ohio 11th Congressional District Special Election Primary Results; Mayoral Candidate Interviews

By Leigh Barr

Published August 4, 2021 at 1:30 PM EDT

Straight on row of voting booths at polling station during an election. [vesperstock/Shutterstock]

Voters in Ohio’s 11 ^th Congressional District made their choice yesterday in the special election primary to fill the seat held in Congress by Marcia Fudge. Fudge left Congress in March to become the United States Secretary for Housing and Urban Development.

The primary special election drew a large field of candidates: 13 Democrats and 2 Republicans. But the biggest money poured into the campaigns of the two front-runners: Nina Turner and Shontel Brown. Nationally the race was framed as a match-up between the competing wings of the Democratic party.

Later in the program, with the special primary election now completed, candidates seeking to become the next mayor of Cleveland have a little more than a month to win over voters before the September 14 primary when the field will be narrowed down to two.

There are seven people seeking to succeed Frank Jackson as mayor. Today we will hear from two more of the hopefuls as part of our "After Jackson: Cleveland's Next Mayor” podcast.

First up, Zack Reed, the former Cleveland City Councilmember making another run at the mayor’s position. Later we hear from City Council President Kevin Kelley.

We have been bringing you in-depth interviews with all seven candidates as part of the “After Jackson: Cleveland’s Next Mayor podcast. Also included in this week’s episode, the fourth in the series, is an interview with candidate Ross DiBello. You will find the link to the entire podcast below as well as on your podcast provider of choice. We will air DiBello’s entire interview on The Sound of Ideas on Monday, August 9. We had to split up this week’s episode to make time for the 11 ^th Congressional District primary results.

Each Wednesday a new episode of After Jackson: Cleveland’s Next Mayor will drop. You can follow the podcast and subscribe at iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and NPR One. We will also continue to bring you the episodes weekly here on The Sound of Ideas as well.

Ideastream Public Media will host two forums with all seven mayoral candidates on August 10 and August 17 with questions submitted by the public. You will find a link to the form to submit a mayoral forum question below in the related content section.

Thomas Sutton, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Director, Community Research Institute, Baldwin Wallace University
Nick Castele, Senior Reporter, Ideastream Public Media
Zack Reed, Mayoral Candidate
Kevin Kelley, Cleveland City Council President, Mayoral Candidate