She’s running against incumbent Rep. Brad Wenstrup
By Brett Milam
Editor
Jill Schiller, a Democrat, is hoping to make Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District race against incumbent Rep. Brad Wenstrup competitive and she sat down with The Sun to talk about her strategy and the issues facing the district.
In 2009, Schiller, 42, worked in the Obama administration, serving in the White House Office of Management and Budget. She lives in Hyde Park with her husband, Josh, and two kids, Reagan and Ben. She grew up in Philadelphia, where she founded the Spells Writing Lab, a nonprofit organization focused on children’s literacy and creative writing.
Wenstrup, a Republican, was first elected in 2012 to the 2nd District, which covers Adams, Brown, Clermont, Highland and Pike Counties, as well as parts of Hamilton, Ross and Scioto Counties. In that race, Wenstrup won 58.6 percent of the vote or 194,296 votes to Democrat William Smith’s 137,077 votes. Wenstrup won more handedly in 2014 against Marek Tyszkiewicz and in 2016, even more so against William Smith.
After last November, when the presidential election was over, Schiller said she started thinking about the mid-terms and she wondered who was going to run against Wenstrup.
“I started looking a bit more at our district and it seemed like there were a lot of things that needed work that hadn’t been addressed,” she said.
Schiller said as she looked into it more, she realized Wenstrup hadn’t had a competitive election since his primary race in 2012, where he unseated incumbent Jean Schmidt, with 48.7 percent of the vote to Schmidt’s 42.9 percent.
So, that turned into: it’s time to give the district’s voters a choice, but she said like most women who run for office, she assumed someone else would do it.
“It quickly became apparent that this was my job,” she said. “It’s interesting to run as a woman. You get a lot of questions. For instance, everybody is very concerned about my children. I’m married, they have a dad.”
While there is that kind of sexism and condescension associated with running for office as a woman, which Schiller called “unbearable at times,” she said it’s actually more a generational thing. Being under 45 and getting involved at this level for the first time, women running for office are bringing a new perspective, especially in Congress to get more equitable representation.
Schiller said it’s really about being a voice for local residents on a national stage. One way of being that voice is to ingratiate yourself in the community. If she were to win, for example, her family would still live in Cincinnati, not Washington D.C. — a slam at her opponent, who she said lives in D.C.
According to his campaign website, Brad Wenstrup’s wife, Monica, and their two children live in Hamilton County.
Schiller has pledged to hold townhalls in every county, at least four a year, saying it’s about being accessible to your constituents and listening to what they need and want.
Schiller’s argument for being competitive is that Democrats still managed to get nearly 42 percent of the vote against Wenstrup in 2012, despite Smith not campaigning or “leaving his house.” So, the thinking goes, if a Democrat actually tries to be competitive, perhaps this red district is only red in a de facto way.
“I truly think this is the most under-the-radar race on the map right now,” she said.
In fact, Schiller said she’s even heard from Republicans who plan to vote for her because they see Wenstrup as “too absentee.”
As a strategy, Schiller said they expect to do well in the bluer Hamilton County and Chillicothe in Ross County. Additionally, with the help of drawing on suburban college educated women and blue collar workers of Clermont, they can “get across the finish line.”
The voters Schiller has been talking to aren’t thinking about the president, impeachment or investigations; instead, they’re talking about health care, education, and “pocketbook issues.” If elected, Schiller said her job is to make things better at the district level.
“I’m not being sent to Washington to be judge and jury on Donald Trump,” she said.
Additionally, while Schiller said she believes in social justice issues, she said it’s hard to care about those, from a citizen’s perspective, if you don’t have a good job, or have good health insurance or your kid’s school.
“I think that’s why we as Democrats have lost a lot of people,” she said, adding that “if you’re not talking about it, then people forget.”
Schiller also said, “I think we have too many immediate problems; I would say it’s much more a referendum on Brad than it is on Donald Trump.”
She did note it’s important for Congress to return to its role as a “check on the other two branches of government.”
In particular, the Medicaid expansion debate has been a hot one for Ohio after outgoing Governor John Kasich helped to enact it in 2014. According to an August 2018 study about the expansion commissioned by Kasich, the number of adults in Ohio eligible for the expansion (138 percent of the federal poverty level, or $21,000 for a family of three and below), the uninsured fell by more than half, from 32.4 percent to 12.8 percent.
In Clermont County specifically, 6.86 of the adult population currently enrolled in the expansion as of November 2017, with 10.53 percent in Brown, 12.45 percent in Adams and 10.77 percent in Hamilton.
The full report can be found at: https://www.medicaid.ohio.gov/Portals/0/Resources/Reports/Annual/Group-VIII-Final-Report.pdf.
“These are people’s lives that we’re playing games with and it’s honestly kind of politics in its most disgusting form because of that,” Schiller said.
Another issue, as Schiller hits the campaign trail, especially further east toward Portsmouth, is the dead zones for internet access.
“If you can’t offer people reliable internet access everywhere in the country, then you’re not setting them up for any form of success, be it financial or educational or any other way; so that’s a big priority of mine is to make sure we have expanded internet access throughout the district,” she said.
Other issues Schiller touched upon was getting prepared to look beyond the coal industry since it’s in decline, referring to efforts to head off such decline, like chasing after “zombie jobs,” in conjunction with coming artificial intelligence; enacting “common sense” gun reforms, which have political backing from all sides of the political spectrum; and ensuring more funding for mental health issues and declaring the opioid crisis a “national emergency.”
“I think that this election about finally giving people a choice,” Schiller said, in closing, adding that it’s about listening to the constituents. “And I live in the district, which is a big plus.”