No one in American public life has fought longer or harder for Ohio’s working people than Sherrod Brown. Over 18 years in the U.S. Senate — and before that in the U.S. House, as Ohio Secretary of State, and as a state representative — Brown built his career on a simple idea: all work has dignity, and the people who do the work deserve a government on their side. This November, in a special election for the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance, Brown is asking Ohioans to send him back to the U.S. Senate, and OEA members have hundreds of thousands of reasons to help him get there. Start with the achievement that touched more Ohio educators than perhaps any federal law in a generation: the repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). For four decades, WEP and GPO unfairly slashed the earned Social Security benefits of Ohio teachers, education support professionals, and other public servants.

Representative Greg Landsman of Cincinnati has spent his career in and around public education, leading the Strive Partnership and the successful Cincinnati Preschool Promise campaign to expand access to high quality preschool before serving on Cincinnati City Council. Elected to Congress in 2022, Landsman has been a dependable champion for public schools, educator pensions, and working families, and a pragmatic voice for getting things done. He is seeking his third term representing parts of Hamilton County and Clinton and Warren Counties.

Brian Poindexter is a father, union ironworker with Ironworkers Local 17 in Cleveland, apprenticeship instructor, and Brook Park City Council member running to bring working-class representation to a district that has gone without it. Poindexter supports strong public schools, workers’ freedom to organize, and health care that doesn’t disappear when a job does. He is challenging incumbent Representative Max Miller (R) in a Cleveland-area race that political analysts increasingly rate a sleeper opportunity.

Representative Marcy Kaptur of Toledo is the longest-serving woman in the history of the United States Congress, representing northwest Ohio since 1983. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, Kaptur has delivered for Great Lakes communities, family farms, veterans, and public schools for four decades, and she has stood with organized labor in every fight. Her perennially targeted district is once again among the most competitive in the nation, and educators can make the difference.

Representative Emilia Sykes of Akron has spent her career fighting for working families, first in the Ohio House, where she rose to Minority Leader and battled attacks on public education and voting rights, and since 2023 in Congress, where she has championed public schools, affordable health care, and good jobs. A public health expert with degrees in law and public health, Sykes is defending one of the nation’s most competitive districts, and educator turnout will decide it.

Don Leonard is an educator running to give central Ohio’s working families a fighter in Washington. Raised by a single mother, Leonard served in the Peace Corps, earned a Ph.D. from Cornell, and taught city and regional planning at The Ohio State University for a decade before stepping down to run. He credits devoted public school educators with changing his life and will defend the public institutions that make the American Dream possible. He is challenging incumbent Representative Mike Carey (R).

Ohioans first came to know Dr. Amy Acton in the spring of 2020, when her calm, honest daily briefings as director of the Ohio Department of Health helped the state navigate the most frightening days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Dr. Acton’s story begins decades earlier in Youngstown, where she grew up amid poverty, housing instability, and abuse — at one point living in a tent through a northeast Ohio winter. Acton is unambiguous about who helped her survive that childhood: public school educators. Educators noticed her, believed in her, and showed her a path forward, and she has said repeatedly that she owes her life to Ohio’s public schools and the people who work in them. Dr. Acton worked her way through college and medical school, earning her medical degree from Northeast Ohio Medical University and a master’s in public health from The Ohio State University, where she later served on the faculty of the College of Public Health.

Joining Dr. Amy Acton on the ticket is David Pepper, a fifth-generation Cincinnatian, attorney, author, and one of the nation’s leading voices for protecting democracy. A graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, Pepper served on Cincinnati City Council and as president of the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners, where he worked to lower property taxes and fight the foreclosure crisis. As chair of the Ohio Democratic Party from 2015 to 2021, and in books such as Laboratories of Autocracy, Pepper has documented how gerrymandered statehouses hurt ordinary citizens — including the educators and students who live with the consequences of an unaccountable legislature.

He and his wife, Alana, live in Cincinnati with their two schoolage children.

Acton and Pepper are running to lower costs for working families, root out corruption, and rebuild an Ohio where every child — in every ZIP code — attends a world-class public school. For OEA members, this race is the heart of the 2026 ballot.

John Kulewicz is a veteran Ohio attorney with more than four decades of courtroom experience handling complex, high-stakes cases in state and federal courts across Ohio and the nation. A graduate of Yale Law School and a member of Upper Arlington City Council, Kulewicz spent the past year visiting all 88 Ohio counties, listening to what Ohioans want from their state’s top lawyer: independence, integrity, and an office that works for people — not one-party politics or corrupt special interest groups.

As Attorney General, Kulewicz will enforce the law evenhandedly, defend the constitutional rights of every Ohioan, protect consumers and retirees, and ensure the office serves as an honest check on government overreach rather than a partisan weapon. For educators, that means an Attorney General who respects public employees, their contracts, and their pensions. He faces current State Auditor Keith Faber (R) in November.