Republicans in the Ohio Statehouse have done everything within their power of gerrymandering to push Cincinnati’s Democratic congressman, Greg Landsman, out of office.
And there are some GOP would-be members of Congress trying to take advantage of that in 2026.
Landsman woke up one morning to find that the GOP had turned his once relatively Democrat-friendly district into a Democrat-dangerous chunk of Southwest Ohio real estate.
They added all of deep-red Clinton County to Ohio's 1st Congressional District and took away a significant portion of the city of Cincinnati and handed it to the MAGA Republican Warren Davidson, who lives in Troy — 75 miles to the north of Cincinnati on I-75 — and whose sprawling district takes in deeply red counties from Butler to Shelby counties.
Those urban Democrats — many of them African American voters — who went to Davidson will be lost in a sea of Republican red.
“Clearly, they were out to screw me,’’ Landsman told WVXU. “The Republicans in the Statehouse want me gone.”
It would appear to be the case, but that begs the question: Why did no big-name Republicans like former Cincinnati City Council member Liz Keating or mayoral candidate Cory Bowman file petitions last week to challenge Landsman?
The Cook Political Report, which created the partisan index for congressional districts, calls Ohio’s 1st District “plus-5” Republican, which means that it votes Republican 5% more than the nation as a whole.
Not great for a Democrat, but not the end of the world either.
The front-runner in a three-candidate GOP primary in Landsman’s district had never popped up in Cincinnati politics until last summer, when he came out of nowhere to announce his candidacy.
His name is Eric Conroy. He is a 37-year-old Elder High School grad who served in the Air Force and is a former CIA officer and is running on a pro-Trump platform, which is somewhat curious. The district may be plus-5 Republican, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into a pro-Trump district.
There will be two other Republicans sharing the ballot with Conroy in the May 5 primary election: Steven Erbeck, a dentist from Lebanon, and Rosemary Oglesby-Henry, who runs a nonprofit organization in Cincinnati.
Both Erbeck and Oglesby-Henry are running on little more than a wing and a prayer. The only Republican with any substantial resources to run a campaign is Conroy; and Conroy is the one Landsman’s campaign is preparing to run against in November.
In an interview with WVXU, Conroy, who has never run for office before, said a run for Congress is “something that has been on my radar for some time now.”
“This is a very competitive district — 53% red,” Conroy said. “It is a real opportunity to flip a seat in Congress from blue to red. The time is right.”
Conroy describes himself as a “common sense conservative” who believes Landsman’s voting record is far too liberal for a district that leans Republican.
“I heard that he wants to defund ICE,” Conroy said.
Well, no, not exactly.
Landsman did vote against a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill in January, but he said at the time his aim is to force DHS to rein in the kind of uncontrolled violence the nation has seen from agents of ICE and the Border Patrol in Minnesota and in other places around the country.
“The situation is dangerous and deadly,” Landsman said in a statement released after the Jan. 22 vote. “And because the administration is doubling down on this chaos, it’s going to get more dangerous and deadly. ICE needs to withdraw from Minneapolis immediately and the administration must pursue comprehensive fixes to keep Americans safe.”
The video on Conroy's campaign website makes it clear where he stands: with Donald Trump.
“Putting American first takes guts,” Conroy says in the video. “President Trump is showing us how it’s done in Washington and I want to do the same for Cincinnati.”
Up until recently, Conroy lived in Green Township, which is in Davidson’s 8th Congressional District. But he recently moved into an apartment in downtown Cincinnati, which is in Landsman’s district.
It really doesn’t matter, as long as he didn’t move to Kentucky.
Our Constitution requires only three things of candidates for the U.S. House:
- That they be at least 25 years old;
- That they be citizens for at least seven years;
- That they live in the state they represent.
Check, check and check.
Assuming Conroy survives the primary, he may find that raising enough money to be competitive in the fall campaign will be a daunting task.
According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance reports, Conroy raised $603,082 in 2025, while Landsman raised about $1.8 million.
And about half of what Conroy raised — 48% — was money the candidate loaned his own campaign.
Help may be on the way. It’s reasonable to expect that millions in independent expenditures will be spent in the district, promoting one candidate or the other.
But there is nothing easy about unseating a sitting congressman. Not even in a plus-5 Republican district.
Landsman said he believes he can overcome gerrymandering and hold on to his seat.
“People know me here — in Cincinnati, in Warren County,” Landsman said. “They know I am serious about my job, that I represent them and that I listen to them.”
“Voters will judge me on what I do.”
Landsman’s campaign did some internal polling in November, four months after Conroy declared himself a candidate. It showed the incumbent Democrat with a six-percentage point lead over Conroy. The poll, done by Impact Research among 500 district voters, showed Landsman's lead ballooning to 20 percentage points among independent voters.
One interesting note in the internal poll was the finding that Donald Trump is under water by eight percentage points (45% favorable, 53% unfavorable). Among independent voters, 63% have a negative view of Trump.
If this is indeed a “wave election” where Democrats can take over control of the House, all of this bodes well for an incumbent like Landsman. He can see what is happening in a state and federal elections in several deeply red states in the South.
Democrats are winning in places where, two years ago, Trump won overwhelmingly. 2026 has all the earmarks of a wave election for Democrats.
All of which makes it curious why a GOP candidate would tie himself to Donald Trump and not let go.
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