Chris Redfern announced his resignation as Ohio Democratic Party chair on election night, and former state Rep. Denny Wojtanowski appeared the early front-runner, getting the support of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. But Wojtanowski bowed out just two days later. That opened up the field, and now one of the five losing statewide candidates says he’s interested.

David Pepper waged an uphill battle against Attorney General Mike DeWine and says he wasn’t thinking about being ODP chair last week, but he is now. 

“We need some leadership; we need a lot of new energy. We need to think through how do we get our own voters more motivated as well as a lot of other folks to vote with us," Pepper says. "And I have expressed interested in being part of the team that helps change the outcomes of these elections.”

Problems in the state and beyond
Pepper says a bad national picture and troubles at the top of the ticket led to the shelling that Democrats took in last week’s elections, including in his race. It’s the second statewide loss for Pepper, a former Cincinnati councilman and Hamilton County commissioner, who ran for auditor in 2010. And Pepper says he’s been talking to another Democrat whose name has been mentioned as a good candidate for chair – Sen. Nina Turner of Cleveland, who ran for Secretary of State. 

“Our hope is to figure out how to do this as a partnership working together, and then both of us sort of reaching across the state and across the country to get people engaged," Pepper says. "So however I move forward, our goal is to have a partnership between two people who worked so hard in this last campaign.”

Turner's stand
Turner is a bit more cautious when asked whether she wants to be chair.

“What I really want to do is take a leadership role that really helps to prepare our party to take advantage of opportunities moving forward," Turner says. "And so I’m not necessarily going to lock myself into any position. But I am taking a role in making sure that our party is moving forward.”

Turner agrees that she and Pepper got close during their campaigns, and that they’ve been having conversations about how they can work together. But she notes that Ohio’s Democratic members of Congress have asked for what they call a “deliberate and inclusive process” in picking a party chair, so it’s too early to talk about herself or Pepper as chair.

Turner does acknowledge, however, time is essential when it comes to talking about why Democratic candidates did so poorly in this year’s election under Redfern’s leadership.

“For everybody or some people to lay this all at his feet I think is unfair. We as a party, as a collective – that’s why we’re called a party – we need to look at where we go from here and act accordingly,” Turner says.