Democrat Ed FitzGerald, the Cuyahoga County executive, is expected to formally announce his candidacy for Ohio governor Wednesday at stops in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.
The Cincinnati event takes place at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Laborers' Local Union Hall at 3457 Montgomery Rd. in Evanston. RSVPs for all three events can be madehere.
FitzGerald, 44, was elected Cuyahoga County's first county executive in 2010 after voters there decided to get rid of the county commission system in the wake of a widespread scandal that landed one county commissioner in federal prison.
He is the only Democrat so far actively campaigning to unseat Republican incumbent John Kasich next year.
A former FBI agent and mayor of the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, FitzGerald is little known outside of northeast Ohio. A Quinnipiac University poll showed that 76 percent of those polled did not know enough about FitzGerald to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him.
The same poll showed FitzGerald trailing Kasich in a head-to-head match-up by nine percentage points - 37 percent to 46 percent.
