Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer Editorial Board just endorsed Rep. Emilia Sykes for Ohio’s 13th Congressional District, saying “Voters in Ohio’s 13th Congressional District should send Emilia Sykes to Congress.”
Sykes handily earned the endorsement of one of Ohio’s largest newspapers over extremist Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, who wants to ban abortion, refuses to say whether Joe Biden won the election and who bought three different houses just to run for Congress. Gilbert refused to participate in the endorsement interview process after routinely attempting to distort Sykes’ record with racist television ads and after failing to promptly file required financial disclosures in the congressional race.
- Listen to the full endorsement interview here
“Voters in Ohio’s 13th Congressional District should send Emilia Sykes to Congress. Early voting in the Nov. 8 election has begun,” writes the editorial board.
Read more from the Cleveland.com/Plain Dealer editorial board here and below:
- No one can doubt that state Rep. Emilia Sykes is unafraid to roll the political dice. As a minority within a minority within a minority within a minority — an urban Black female Democrat in an Ohio House that is mostly rural, white, male and Republican — Sykes has made the majority sit up and pay attention. In 2018, the Akron native demanded Statehouse security bias training after she and other Black women lawmakers and staff were followed and questioned despite their security badges.
- Sykes, 36, the former Ohio House minority leader, is term-limited after serving eight years, and has set her sights on Congress in a closely contested U.S. House district that tilts slightly Democratic. Ohio’s revamped 13th District, as redrawn for this election, includes Summit County, northern Stark County and a slice of Portage County.
- The race pits Sykes against a Donald-Trump-endorsed Republican, Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, 30, of North Canton, making her first run for office. Gesiotto Gilbert, who declined to participate in The Plain Dealer/cleveland.com endorsement process, “owns and operates the Seven Hills Golf Club in Hartville with her husband, former NFL offensive tackle Marcus Gilbert,” cleveland.com’s Sabrina Eaton reports.
- Both candidates are lawyers who grew up in the region. But the race offers voters a stark contrast on a seminal electoral issue: Was the 2020 election stolen? Sykes says no and vowed in the endorsement interview to oppose “election deniers and folks who, quite frankly, don’t want America to continue on as we have enjoyed it for the last couple of hundred years.” Gesiotto Gilbert, when Eaton asked whether the 2020 election was above board, failed to answer the question, diverting to a critique of President Joe Biden.
- Voters in Ohio’s 13th Congressional District should send Emilia Sykes to Congress. Early voting in the Nov. 8 election has begun.
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