By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.
The Truth Contributor
Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. – Mark Twain
Ohio gubernatorial candidate Dr. Amy Acton, a Democrat, was in Toledo last week, sponsored by State Senator Paula Hicks-Hudson of Ohio’s 11th Senate District. I had the chance to briefly chat with Acton just as she arrived, before she went into her meeting with Black religious and community leaders.
Acton had stepped out of the car like she had somewhere to be and knew exactly why. And it got me thinking. That kind of presence — striking, purposeful, fully engaged; That kind of energy means, at this stage of a political race, the other side has a problem.
That assumption deserves a second look. What happens to the Republican coalition when the transactional voters—the ones who backed Trump for specific economic and policy payoffs—start quietly disengaging or checking out?
Amy Walter, one of the nation’s sharpest political analysts, concludes from polling and recent special election results in Georgia and Wisconsin that Trump’s MAGA base remains essentially rock-solid at roughly 38-40 percent of his coalition. But the softer Republicans who voted for cheaper gas and groceries, factory jobs and no new wars are angry and drifting away.
Nowhere does this matter more than Ohio’s 9th Congressional District—built on union halls and factory floors, clinging to the fading promise of a manufacturing revival.
Democrat Marcy Kaptur—the longest-serving woman in Congress—is running again. Five Republicans are vying for the chance to challenge her in northwest Ohio’s most competitive race.
What will it take to win the GOP primary?
The winner will be the candidate who can consolidate the faithful MAGA base while simultaneously giving frustrated transactional Republicans a reason to show up against a battle-tested incumbent with deep community roots. These are not the same Republican voters as in 2024, and they are not moved by the same arguments.
So, it’s a trap with no clean exit. Run as a hardcore MAGA candidate, and you may not survive November. Soften and go low-profile MAGA, and someone beats you in May. As for Iran, even the candidates who have doubts know better than to say so out loud.
The ultimate test: can the GOP primary candidate assemble a coalition broad enough to defeat Kaptur in November? But can the candidate get through the primary without going all-out MAGA and risk alienating transactional voters in the general election?
Moreover, beneath the tricky candidate calculus, something else is quietly shifting in northwest Ohio’s labor landscape. Senator Hicks-Hudson’s sponsorship of the Acton event put us on notice.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), one of the largest factions — and most financially powerful unions in Ohio’s coalition of affiliated building & construction trade unions, has broken from the consolidated trades council to endorse Acton’s campaign for governor.
It is a significant fracture. The IBEW doesn’t make endorsements carelessly. When electricians’ leadership concludes the Trump economic bet isn’t paying off for their members, it signals that the transactional voter erosion Walter identifies in polling is already percolating within the institutions and has spilled over among individual voters.
Northwest Ohio’s transactional voters didn’t sign up for Iran or economic anxiety. They signed up for stability, fair pay, jobs, and the lower prices that haven’t arrived.
That brief exchange with Amy Acton — sharp, purposeful, and fully engaged even before she walked into the room of Black religious and community leaders — was not incidental. It was a sign of the political realignment unfolding in northwest Ohio.
The GOP winner in OH-9 will face a Kaptur campaign that’s already organizing, energized, and drawing on a coalition—from the IBEW to Toledo’s Black community—that is quietly coming together.
The crucial issue now is whether any of the five Republicans on that primary ballot can bring home the frustrated along with its MAGA faithful. That is the only path to beating Marcy Kaptur.
And right now, it is not at all clear who among the five GOP candidates knows how to walk it.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org