The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
A June 11 special election will decide who will fill the vacancy in Ohio’s 6th Congressional District.
Republican state Sen. Michael Rulli and Democrat Michael Kripchak are facing off in the special election that will decide who will represent Ohio’s eastern border in Congress.
Former Congressman Bill Johnson vacated his congressional seat earlier this year when he started his new role as Youngstown State University president. Johnson represented the sixth congressional district since 2011.
Rulli and Kripchak won their parties’ respective primary race in March. Early voting for the June special election is underway and polls will be open 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on June 11.
The 6th Congressional District includes Belmont, Carroll, Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson, Mahoning, Monroe, Noble, Stark, Tuscarawas, and Washington Counties.
Michael Rulli
Rulli, who currently represents Columbiana and Mahoning counties, has served in the Ohio Senate since 2019.
He currently serves as the the General Government Committee Chair, Select Committee on Rail Safety Vice Chair and Workforce and Higher Education Vice Chair. He is also on the Small Business and Economic Opportunity and Transportation committees.
Since he is term-limited in the Ohio Senate, Rulli had planned on running for Ohio Secretary of State, but that all changed when Johnson resigned in November.
“I had talked to Bill Johnson and he thought it would be a good fit,” Rulli said, noting he didn’t want to run against Johnson historically.
“I’m a team player,” he said. “I would have never challenged Bill. Of course, I would have loved to been in Congress. … Once this opened up, you know, I had all the phone calls, and I was in a very unique situation.”
A slice of the sixth congressional includes counties he currently represents in the Ohio Senate and Rulli said his experience in the Statehouse makes him stand out against his opponent.
“The work to get a bill through is probably the most complicated process I’ve ever experienced in my career,” Rulli said.” I’m going to do whatever it takes to get (a bill) to the finish line.”
Rulli, who was born and raised in Mahoning County, is also the Director of Operations for Rulli Bros. Markets in Youngstown.
He is about a year and a half into his second term, meaning he has a little two and a half years left in his term. If he were to be elected, Senate Majority Floor Leader Rob McColley and Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, would choose someone to be Rulli’s successor for the rest of the year. Then there will be a candidate on the November ballot to finish the last two years of his term.
Michael Kripchak
This is Democrat Michael Kripchak’s first time running for office.
Kripchak, born and raised in Youngstown, graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a degree in physics.
“That was a formative time for me,” he said.
After his time in the Air Force, he lived in Los Angeles and worked in the entertainment industry as an actor and writer. He was featured in Searching for Fortune, a 2017 independent drama film.
He then went on to get his master’s degree in interactive telecommunications at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and moved back to Youngstown during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to help out his parents.
A big part of Kripchak’s campaign is centered on restoring the American Dream.
“That obviously means getting money into people’s pockets, actually allowing people in our communities the opportunities and empowerment to have a thriving wage, not just a livable wage,” Kripchak said.
He admits he previously never considered running for office.
“Four or five years ago, I never even cared about politics,” Kripchak said.
So why did he decide to run for Congress?
“I’m running because of Jan. 6, and we can’t give ourselves over to a con man from Queens,” he said. “And the answer to that is to fix our wealth gap, give people a thriving wage, not just a livable wage. … (The House of Representatives is) where most of our problems are right now. … We need to get someone in there that’s putting country over party, because this party over country stuff is killing us.”
