Blackshear, Koehler win primaries for Ohio Senate 6th, 10th districts
Willis Blackshear Jr. and Kyle Koehler on Tuesday won Ohio Senate primary races for Montgomery, Clark Clinton and Greene counties
Blackshear Jr. won the Democratic primary for the Ohio Senate 6th District, getting 46% of the vote, while Jocelyn Rhynard earned 30.9% of the vote and Jyl Hall had 22.9% of the vote, according to final, unofficial results from the Ohio Secretary of State.
Blackshear Jr. has represented Dayton in Ohio House District 38 since 2021. Rhynard has been a member of the Dayton Board of Education since 2018 and is a member of the Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio board. Hall, who has been a Kettering city councilwoman since 2021, is the daughter of former Congressman and U.S. Ambassador Tony Hall.
District 6 includes most of central and southern Montgomery County, except for the city of Miamisburg.
Democrats will have a newfound advantage in the recently redrawn Senate District 6. The Ohio Redistricting Commission calculated partisan lean of the voter base when redrawing the maps, and has District 6 leaning 8 percentage points toward the Democrats. That gives the party a chance to elect its first Democratic senator in the Miami Valley in over a decade.
Blackshear will face Republican state school board member Charlotte McGuire in the general election in November. McGuire was the county GOP’s top pick to defend its seat after current Sen. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, opted to run for Congress and forego reelection.
Blackshear said he and McGuire represent “two very different visions for our future.”
“I will fight for creating good jobs, investing in public education, and protecting abortion rights,” he said. “She will maintain the corrupt status quo where our state politicians try to ban abortion while giving more tax cuts to the wealthy and ignoring the will of the people.”
McGuire has said that her focus as a state senator would be to bring unity and act as “a voice for Montgomery County,” adding, “That’s all I want to be.”
The district was redrawn last year and now leans Democratic by about eight points, according to an Ohio Redistricting Commission analysis.
Ohio Senate District 10
Koehler won the Republican primary for Ohio Senate District 10, according to the Oho Secretary of State.
Koehler, a Springfield-based software engineer, formerly represented the area in the Ohio House for eight years, earned 66% of the vote. Carolyn Destefani, an Air Force veteran who serves as a trustee for Greene County’s Sugarcreek Twp., earned 34% of the vote.
District 10 covers the entirety of Clark, Greene and Clinton counties. The Ohio Redistricting Commission has District 10 leaning 26 percentage points toward Republicans. Koehler will go up against Democrat Daniel McGregor in the general election in November.
“I’m very pleased that the folks that are in Clinton and Greene County took the time to come out and vote for me and put their trust in me,” Koehler said late Tuesday night. “I appreciate that Clark County folks know me, but going into two new counties, I’m just very appreciative of the Republicans that stepped up tonight (and) voted for me and moving forward as we head toward November.”
Koehler said he wants to “bring some stability back” to the Ohio General Assembly.
“Things are a mess over there and I look forward to bringing in what I would call a steady hand back to how we operate as a general assembly, how we treat one another and how we move forward to make Ohio a great place for folks to live, work and raise their families,” he told this news outlet late Tuesday night.
Koehler vied for the seat in the primary because Sen. Bob Hackett, R-London, is term-limited after eight years representing the district.