An Ohio city councilman from a working class suburb near Cleveland’s airport has become something of a darling among national Democrats in recent weeks.
Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker and the Democratic nominee for Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, launched his campaign out of his garage. Fellow Brook Park councilman Thomas Dufour has served as his campaign manager, communications director, and treasurer since January. At an Aug. 15 town hall in Medina, he added another job title: cameraman.
“It started with just me and Tom in the garage, and then two became four, four became eight,” Poindexter said in an interview earlier this month, sitting at a picnic table in a small park in Parma.
Cook Political Report initially deemed the race “Likely Republican,” with Poindexter up against incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller in a district that President Donald Trump won by 11 percentage points in 2024. Ohio’s 7th Congressional District includes Cleveland’s West Side suburbs, as well as Medina, Wayne, and Ashland counties.
When allegations of domestic violence against Miller caused several prominent Republicans to call for his resignation — a movement led by Miller’s ex-father-in-law, U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno — Democrats turned their attention to Poindexter. Miller denies the allegations against him.
Progressives who backed Poindexter in the primary, like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, have since joined forces with some of the more moderate voices in the party, like former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and the Blue Dog PAC. Cook Political Report now says the race is a toss-up.
After Poindexter was interviewed by The New York Times, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, and Politico in early August, he told the crowd in Medina that going on national television has been “a nightmare.”
Poindexter spoke in Medina about starting an associate’s degree at 27 years old, paying student loans for his daughter, and living with his parents after a divorce in 2020. He has acknowledged the charges he picked up as a young man: a misdemeanor assault charge and two misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges, one that he pleaded no contest for and another that was dismissed. He added that fatherhood changed his perspective.
Between campaigning and serving on Brook Park’s city council, his work as an apprenticeship instructor at Ironworkers Local 17 is still his primary source of income, according to personal financial disclosures.
Poindexter has limited name recognition in his district, but his unusual biography could help, said Cyril Kleem, the Republican mayor of Berea. Brook Park shares a school district with Berea, and Kleem endorsed Poindexter in early August.
“A lot of working class people have felt left out,” Kleem said. ‘Some of those people have gravitated toward the Republican Party, particularly toward Donald Trump, because I think to a certain extent, the Democratic Party has been accused of forgetting about them. I think he represents them.”
Despite having support from almost the entire Democratic Party — including $6 million in committed spending from a super PAC dedicated to flipping the U.S. House of Representatives — Poindexter has repeatedly tried to shed the party label.
“I’m not in this to carry the flag for the Democratic Party,” he said. “I’m in this to flip a seat for working families.”
As Democrats rally behind Poindexter, Republicans splinter on Miller
While Kleem mainly endorsed Poindexter because of their collaboration at the local level, “of course” the allegations against Miller were a factor in his decision, he said.
Kleem said he privately told Poindexter to avoid talking about the scandal frequently, reasoning that protecting Miller’s daughter was more important than winning the race. The Brook Park councilman agreed, Kleem added. When asked about the scandal in interviews, Poindexter usually acknowledges the severity of the situation before pivoting to focus on Miller’s policies.
“If you talk to a strategist, they’re going to go for the throat. I still believe in ethics,” Kleem said. “If my doctor gave me six months to live, I’m not going to be sitting around worried about the elections I won. I’m going to want to spend time with my kids and my wife.”
In a July 8 affidavit for a defamation lawsuit he brought against his ex-wife, Miller wrote that labor unions turned against him because of the allegations. Representatives for three trade unions informed him that they would pull their endorsements, and the international organization for a fourth told him they would endorse Poindexter, he wrote.
Since then, four Republican U.S. senators have called for Miller’s resignation, including both of Ohio’s senators. U.S. Sen. Jon Husted pulled Miller’s endorsement from his campaign website shortly after releasing a statement saying he thought Miller would be “making the right decision” by dropping out of the race and resigning.
Husted’s campaign took $10,000 from Miller’s leadership PAC in 2025. According to campaign finance records as of July 31, he has not returned the donation. Republican candidate for Ohio governor Vivek Ramaswamy’s website still shows Miller’s endorsement.
Voters in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District have had mixed reactions to the allegations.
Victoria Kovach, a registered Republican from Strongsville who works as a server and social worker, said she plans to vote entirely Democratic this year. She usually votes Republican in local elections, she said, but the last time she voted in a federal race was for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Her elderly father, her friends, and her 20-year-old son’s friends have all heard about the allegations, she said. Her father, who she said voted for Trump, supported Moreno and Husted’s calls for Miller to drop out of the race and resign.
“I know they’re allegations, but those are some pretty serious allegations — enough to ruin your name,” she said. “That’s not what we need to represent our county, which is why I feel like you have Republicans out here who are going to vote Democratic.”
Poindexter is running as a listener. But whom will he listen to?
Even though they don’t always see eye to eye on policy, Kleem said Poindexter will always hear him out. Poindexter emphasizes a commitment to strong constituent services when speaking to voters, promising to hold quarterly town halls and establish congressional offices throughout the district if elected.
“The [U.S.] House of Representatives is supposed to be made up of people who are representative of the people they serve,” he said. “I do that better than my opponent. I do that better than anybody else who has run for this district in quite a long time.”
He also brings his own ideas, like phasing in universal healthcare by first lowering the minimum age to qualify for Medicare to 55. He supports regulations on data centers, opposes increased military spending for the war in Iran, and doesn’t hide his support for reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights.
When asked what legislation he would support on his first day in office, he immediately said the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Reintroduced in 2025, it would give more power to unions and weaken right-to-work laws. He has also said he would support Moreno’s push to lift the cap on the amount of annual income subject to the payroll tax that funds Social Security.
Some of his more progressive stances may be appealing to Democratic voters in a primary, but Kleem warned that they could alienate Republicans and independents in a general election.
His campaign does not accept corporate PAC money, and personal financial disclosures show that he does not hold stock investments. An outside group with corporate ties is supporting him: Jobs and Democracy PAC, a super PAC in favor of artificial intelligence regulation backed by AI company Anthropic, spent over $512,000 on advertising for Poindexter before the primary.
Poindexter has said he doesn’t know why the Anthropic-backed super PAC is supporting him. Miller has accepted campaign donations from a wide variety of corporate interests, including the Haslam family, Pfizer, John Deere, and more.
“I don’t have to be pro-labor, folks. I am labor,” Poindexter said in a speech at the North Shore AFL-CIO headquarters in July. “My friends, my family — I would not be able to look them in the eye if I went to Washington and forgot where I came from.”
Eileen Velasquez said she listens to the news on the radio in between caring for her grandchildren and shuttling guests from the Best Western in Brook Park to the Cleveland Airport. She doesn’t vote because whether Republican or Democratic, “the rich get richer,” she added.
Her food stamps to feed her family were cut by $175 around three months ago, and she criticized Trump for his attacks on immigrants. But instead of leaning toward one party or another, she simply listens.
“Politicians promise you gold, but they give you copper,” she said.
Neither Kovach nor Velasquez had heard of Poindexter when interviewed, and both said they had little hope that the Democratic Party could offer significant change. A pollconducted by Tavern Research in early August found that 35% of voters in the district were not familiar with Poindexter’s name.
Kleem said that faith cannot be won back in the few months before an election. As he finds his political lane, Poindexter could find himself being pulled in different directions if the people endorsing him have different perspectives, Kleem added.
“At some point, he’s got to find himself,” Kleem said. “The Brian I know is not Bernie Sanders, and he’s not anyone else. He’s Brian Poindexter. He’s a working man … I believe he is the kind that, if he was in a position to take on his own party, I think he would.”
Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.