Republican state Senator Michael Rulli won a special election on Tuesday in eastern Ohio for a U.S. House seat that has been empty for months. This victory expands the GOP’s small majority in the House of Representatives.
Rulli, 55 years, beat Democrat Michael Kripchak to serve the rest of Republican Bill Johnson’s unfinished term. Rulli and Kripchak will face each other again on November 5 for a full two-year term in Congress that starts in January.
Rulli won by about 10 percentage points, which was much closer than previous Republican wins in Ohio’s 6th District. In his last four elections, Johnson won by more than 30 percentage points. In 2020, Trump also won the district by around 30 percentage points. Even though this was a special election held in the summer when fewer people usually vote, the results might give Democrats hope that they can compete this fall in Ohio and the neighboring state of Pennsylvania.
“We knew the polls were gong to be close, and the guy I ran against really worked. He’s a really hard worker,” Rulli said. “But this is a blue-collar district, this is Bruce Springstein, the forgotten man, ‘Joe Bag of Donuts.’ They don’t trust the Democrats and Republicans, and they look at the individual. And I’m really good at retail politics.”
Rulli is in his second term as a state senator. He is from Salem in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, where he runs his family’s grocery store chain that has been in business for 100 years.
Kripchak, who is 42 and from Youngstown, served in the U.S. Air Force and has worked as an actor and in interactive telecommunications. He currently works at a local restaurant.
“Tonight’s results have not diminished our spirit,” Kripchak said in a written statement. “Though historically a red district, our campaign outperformed expectations, proving the doubters wrong.”
Former Representative Johnson resigned in January after 13 years in Congress to become the president of Youngstown State University. His seat has been empty since then.
The election took place under congressional maps that the Ohio Supreme Court previously deemed unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans.
The sprawling 6th District, which runs through 11 counties along the Ohio River, leans nearly 59% Republican, according to Dave’s Redistricting App, a political mapmaking website.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.