Reply #1: Actually, Plusquellic's challenger was also a Dem [View All]

[NEOBuckeye]

Plusquellic's challenger, Joe Finley, is actually a left-center Democrat who takes issue with Plusquellic's administration and his handling of city finances. Hence the September election instead of a November one. It was a Primary. The Republicans aren't running a challenger against Plusquellic in November, meaning that he's basically free and in the clear for another four years.

The thinking here is that Plusquellic is actually a centrist Dem who has worked with the business community on economic development issues. Plusquellic right now is working to keep Goodyear, Akron's last major home-grown rubber company, here in town. Business leaders put pressure on Summit County GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff to keep a challenger out of the race, though it's not like a Republican could really win in this town anyhow these days, given Akron's demographics (urban, predominately Dem) and that Plusquellic pretty much destroyed Arshinkoff's last challenger (former state Rep. Bryan Williams) four years earlier.

Finley supposedly campaigned to get the few Republicans who do live in the city limits to cast their vote for him, but to do so, they would have had to change party registration at the same time, since that's the way Ohio's primaries are structured. Most Republicans here, however, would rather eat crow than switch parties to vote Democratic. So when they showed up at the polls and learned that they would have to switch parties to vote for Finley, most just walked away.