A leftist’s attempt to get on the ballot in Ohio as a Republican was shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.
Samuel Ronan, who previously ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee, filed to run for Ohio’s 15th Congressional District and challenge Republican Rep. Mike Carey in the GOP primary. Ronan admitted his candidacy was part of a ploy to run Democrats in “deep red” districts, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court, Fox News reported.
In one social media post, Ronan wrote, “Leftists need to infiltrate Republican spaces and primary them.”
The leftist candidate was tossed from the GOP primary ballot by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who called Ronan’s attempt to run as a Republican “political transgenderism.” Chief U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison upheld LaRose’s decision, saying that Ronan’s declaration to run as a Republican was fraudulent. The Supreme Court refused to intervene in the case on Thursday, with none of the justices dissenting from the decision to keep the lower court’s order in place.
“This is political transgenderism, and it’s a longstanding problem with Ohio’s primary process,” LaRose said. “We had to go all the way to the nation’s highest court to fight a blatant attempt by a self-declared Democrat to hijack a Republican primary contest.”
When he declared to run as a Republican, Ronan also promised to abide by the Republican Party’s principles, and his candidacy was certified by the Franklin County Board of Elections in February. Ohio Republican voter Mark Schare, however, noticed that Ronan had publicly expressed his intention to run in the GOP primary while still pushing leftist views and filed a protest with the elections board.
LaRose stepped in to toss Ronan off the ballot after the Franklin County Board of Elections tied along party lines in a vote to decide whether Ronan could stay on the ballot.
“As required by Ohio law, Ronan declared that he was ‘a member of the Republican Party’ and if elected he would ‘support and abide by the principles enunciated by the Republican Party,’” LaRose wrote. “But even after signing this form, Ronan continued to push his vision that Democrats like himself should primary Republicans in deep-red districts to ‘get a foot in the door.’”
Ronan denied that his candidacy was “some kind of trick” and mentioned that Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump were also former Democrats. Ronan’s attorney claimed that Rep. Carey was allowed to “surreptitiously sabotage Ronan’s ballot access by secretly enlisting the Ohio Republican Party to protest Ronan.” The attorney also argued that one of the election board members should have recused herself since she is a top official in the Ohio Republican Party.
LaRose called for Ohio to adopt a closed primary system, which requires voters to register with a party before they cast a ballot. Ohio’s current primary system is partially open, meaning that voters are not required to register with a party before the election, but they must request either a Republican or Democratic ballot.
“This individual took advantage of an open primary process that’s far too vulnerable to trickery and fraud and used it to advance his dishonest campaign to ‘run Democrats as Republicans,'” LaRose added. “We stopped it this time, but it’s time to adopt a closed primary process and partisan voter registration before this happens again.”
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