BROOK PARK, Ohio — If Congressman Max Miller chooses to stay in the race for re-election to his 7th District Congressional seat, which he has signaled at every turn he will, he faces a hurdle that, going into the race, seemed like anything but an obstacle: winning re-election in November.
"It's not every day that a union ironworker says I'm going to run for Congress," said Poindexter, but that's exactly what he's doing, answering the call he said he's been hearing on job sites for more than two decades.
"Everybody along the way said we need someone who understands what we're going through in Washington, and I look around, and nobody else is stepping up and taking on that role."
The 47-year-old father of two grew up on Cleveland's west side and graduated from John Marshall High School after West Tech closed. He has worked as an ironworker for the last 19 years and, before that, as a truck driver and in machine shops and kitchens. He's also served on the Brook Park City Council for the past nine years.
"Every job I've ever done, whether it was the truck driver or in the kitchens as a union ironworker, everybody along the way said we need someone who understands what we're going through in Washington, and I look around and nobody else is stepping up and taking on that role," he said.
Poindexter is the prototypical Democrat of the 80s and 90s, the type of worker former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan used to say showered at the end of their shift, not before. Those are exactly the type of Democratic voters who shifted to Donald Trump in 2016 and have, for the most part, stayed in the Republican camp. So can he win them back, and how?
"I hope to win them back," he said. "If you look, yeah, this district Donald Trump won by 11 points, but what message did he run on? He ran on a message of fighting for workers, bringing jobs back, making it a golden age for workers, and that really hasn't realized, and I believe that anybody who is willing to stand up and fight for the working families of this district are going to win this district."
On Miller, Poindexter said he's focusing on the matters impacting the people, not their current congressman.
"I didn't get into this race because Max Miller has terrible personal issues going on in his life. I got into this race because of policies he's supported that have made it harder on working families," he said. "He can continue to play out his personal life on his time."
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When asked if he thought Miller should step down from his post, Poindexter said, "I'm not going to presume to tell him what he should or shouldn't do. We're just going to continue to run the race that we started on January 15th, fighting for workers, bringing Republicans, Independents and Democrats together to fight for the issues that we all know are real because we live them every day."
News 5 reached out to Miller for comment on this story, but did not hear back.
Poindexter knows he will face attempts to tie him to the far left of his party.
"There's extremes on both sides. I've already seen attack ads against me saying I'm a Socialist because I had a rally with Bernie Sanders. I'm the furthest from that, and I think that the bigger picture is anytime anybody, somebody tries to do something good for working families, they're going to get labeled as something, socialist, communist, radical, and I'm none of those things. I'm just the kid down the street who wants to work hard to raise my family and bring our community back together," he said.
