Garrett to face Jordan in 4th district

Janet Garrett of Oberlin won the Democratic nomination for the chance to challenge longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan in Ohio’s 4th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

On Tuesday Garrett, a retired public school teacher, defeated Norbert Dennerll, Jr., a Marine Corps veteran and former Cleveland city council member from Elyria, and Daniel Johnson, a Plain City attorney. With about 96 percent of the total votes counted before the News-Sun went to press, Garrett received about 66 percent, followed by Johnson (25 percent) and Dennerll, Jr. (8 percent).

“I’m very honored by the votes and the confidence the voters have shown in me,” Garrett said.

Garrett will face off against Jordan (R-Urbana) in November to represent Ohio’s 4th district, which spans a huge portion of Ohio stretching from south of Urbana and heading north to Lake Erie. Jordan ran unopposed in the Republican primary.

The district covers all or parts of Allen, Auglaize, Champaign, Crawford, Erie, Huron, Logan, Lorain, Marion, Mercer, Sandusky, Seneca, Shelby and Union counties.

Jordan, a long-time conservative lawmaker, has served in Congress since 2007. Jordan is known as one of the most conservative members of the House and serves as chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. He previously served as chairman of the House Republican Study Committee.

Jordan beat Garrett with 68 percent of the vote in November 2014. At that time, Garrett was a write-in candidate. This time around, she’ll have more name recognition.

As part of her primary campaign, Garrett completed a two-week listening tour, stopping in each county in the district. She plans to do more tours before the general election.

“This district needs a lot of help,” Garrett said. “We need jobs, we need to improve our educational system and we need to take care of our seniors. I’m ready for this. … Those issues resonated with everyone, everywhere I went with.”

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