Some of Columbus’s best progressive activists and their wisdom can be heard at the Free Press’s monthly Salon, and this past Saturday afternoon was no exception as the recent primary vote was unpacked and dissected.
Hosted at Old First Presbyterian Church on the Near East side, our guest speakers were Morgan Harper, former congressional candidate and executive director for Columbus Stand Up!, and Don Leonard (pictured above), who arguably can now be described as a rising star in Ohio’s progressive community.
Harper believes the Ohio Democratic primary vote reflected a “dynamic shifting” and a “different energy” occurring amongst both local, state and national Democrats.
“We had a ton of first-time candidates, Don included,” said Harper. “He wasn’t alone. Joe Gerard vs. Joyce Beatty. Joe got 20 percent. Bryan Hambley vs. Allison Russo. Bryan is a doctor and decided he was going to run for Secretary of State and ran a real campaign. They had a solid, solid showing.”
Harper noted how the May 5 vote had the highest voter turnout in a decade.
“Does that have anything to do with the fact we had multiple candidates that were running multiple campaigns that were very legitimate, and even if they did not have a ton of resources, they were hitting the pavement and talking to people and making the case for why someone should care for a primary election? I think there’s a connection.”
Leonard won his Democratic primary for Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, that includes areas of northwest, west and south Columbus, with 53 percent of the vote over former state Rep. Adam Miller. Leonard, you may recall, was arrested back in March at a “No Kings” rally by Grove City police for being too loud with a bullhorn. He will face Republican US Rep. Mike Carey in November’s general election.
Leonard teaches city planning classes at Ohio State and readily admits he’s not a traditional politician. He “didn’t want to run this race” and “enjoyed his day job,” but then his daughter was born on January 19 of last year and the very next day was Trump’s inauguration.
“Almost immediately they started attacking top research universities like mine because we had the audacity to allow students to protest the genocide in Gaza,” he said. “By February they were disappearing our international students who were here legally with visas for showing up at those protests. And by April they were disappearing anybody who didn’t look ‘American’ with these masked ICE agents, these thugs on our streets.”
The straw that broke the camel’s back, said Leonard, was in June of last year when Republican Rep. Mike Carey, after he voted for Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ which included a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid, bragged about it on the House floor, saying it was ‘deficit reduction for the financial health of our children.’
“That dude knows damn well that 47 percent of the kids in this congressional district get their healthcare from Medicaid, as well as a ton of seniors and a lot of folks who just can’t work for one reason or another. That was a little personal for me, I was raised by a single mom,” he said, adding programs such as Medicaid kept them afloat during tough times.
“My daughter was born in 2025,” Leonard continued, “and God-willing she’s going to live to touch the 22nd century, the year 2100. Forget what kind of economy or what kind of democracy we are leaving behind for the little ones, what kind of planet, when these data centers are cranking out carbon like it was their job?”
Harper, currently working with Our City, Our Say to end the at-large vote for City Council and create a pure district representation, says the May 5th primary showed us how the “establishment is turning on each other.” The ‘establishment’ in this context are those who have been in the circles of traditional Democratic politics in Franklin County.
“We saw fewer party endorsements, and so we were able to have a cleaner primary, which is what a lot of us have been arguing for some time,” she said.
She then asked, “Why do we care?”
“Because we know that when the party is picking winners and losers that people don’t care as much and we don’t get as much turnout, and we are not in a position to win and elect people who reflect our values and most of the values of those who live in this state. And that’s why this matters.”