Early voting opens Tuesday for Ohio's May 5 primary. In the 1st Congressional District, six candidates are on the ballot.
Could the race help determine who controls the U.S. House?
Today, we talk to the two Democrats in this race: incumbent Congressman Greg Landsman and challenger Damon Lynch, IV. Our interview with Mr. Lynch was recorded on Monday, March 30, and will air first. Our interview with Rep. Landsman was recorded on Friday, April 3, and will air second. The interviews are followed by fact-checking and analysis. On Wednesday and Thursday, we bring you interviews with the Republicans in this race.
Guests:
- Damon Lynch IV, Democratic Candidate for Ohio's 1st Congressional District
- Rep Greg Landsman, D-Ohio's 1st Congressional District
- David Niven, professor of political science, University of Cincinnati
- Erin Glynn, regional politics reporter, Cincinnati Enquirer
These interviews were pre-recorded so we can't take your phone calls.
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This episode was transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors and has been lightly edited for clarity. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. You also can watch a video of our conversations on YouTube.
Click the below links to jump to the transcript of each conversation:
Damon Lynch IV
Greg Landsman
Analysis
Damon Lynch IV
Six candidates are running for Ohio's first congressional district this year. Could the race help determine who controls the U.S. House? This is Cincinnati Edition on WVXU, I'm Lucy May. Joining me in this recorded interview to discuss why he's running is Damon Lynch IV, a Democratic candidate in the race. Welcome to the program. So tell us about yourself and why you're running.
So I am Damon Lynch IV. And the fourth denotes that you may know my father, who is Pastor Damon Lynch III, or my grandfather was Pastor Damon Lynch Jr. All my life, we have been fighting to make this country better. Since a baby, I've been in circles and been around people who've always tried to make America the best place for all people. And now I see in our government that most of our government doesn't work for the people like I will want them to. So I saw an opportunity to go out and change that and be the voice that I wanted to hear.
What are your concerns about the way Congressman Greg Landsman is representing the district?
Landsman is a really nice guy, and I've known him for a long time, and he's done some really great things in the district and in the city of Cincinnati. Our concerns right now center around his unableness to say that there's a genocide in Gaza, and recently, his unableness to stop Donald Trump from this war in Iran. So those are our biggest concerns, where he takes his money from, and who he pledges his allegiance to, as far as his time in Congress.
What is your position on the war in Iran, and what would you try to do about it if you were elected to Congress?
Well, it is, seemingly it's getting out of hand, so we need to immediately call the Senate and the Congress back-to-back to session to put a war powers resolution together that so that they can vote and slow Donald Trump down. And that's the vote that Greg Landsman and three other Democrats denied to do two weeks ago. So Congress needs to come back. They need to stop Donald Trump. They need to pull our troops back. Donald Trump is going crazy on the internet, on his own personal internet, Truth Social and saying just one thing today, another thing tomorrow. So the American people don't have good information, and we can't rely on Greg Landsman to give us good information either, because he seems steadfast towards being in this conflict.
Are you concerned about gas prices and affordability in general? What do you think Congress should do about those issues?
I'm not just concerned. They're affecting me greatly. They're affecting my family. I have to take my kids to school every day, and it's costing me more and more and more. So the American people are hurting because of this conflict, or if call it a war, or whatever it is, that we're spending billions of dollars a day. And right now, Congress needs to get control. Congress needs to and I don't know if it's Congress, I don't know if it's Donald Trump, and I don't even at this point, we've kind of been sent down the road. It doesn't seem like we can come back from very fast, and it's gonna hurt a lot of people in America.
How hard would that be to do if you're elected as a Democrat, and if Democrats remain in the minority in the House, and then they don't have control of the House and the Senate? How tough would it be to make an impact on affordability and gas prices?
I have full faith that in these midterms, no matter what Donald Trump does with ICE at the ballots or the Save Act, that the Democratic Party will regain control of the House and the Senate. And God willing, a lot of those Democrats that get elected will be progressive enough to hold accountability hearings against Donald Trump, against Pam Bondi, against Hegseth, and hold these people for the war crimes that they've already committed.
What do you think about the way the Department of Justice and Congress have handled the Epstein files and the people named in the files?
I honestly believe that it's all connected the Epstein files, the Iran war, AIPAC and our allegiances in government, that they are withholding the information That would sour our relationship with other foreign countries. So the stuff that they do give us is to blindside us, and the stuff that they're holding back is the real meat and potatoes and the fact that this government or this administration they pushed for it while they were running, and then they backtracked when they got there is something that we will see college courses being taught about in the future.
And do you think that's more about people from other governments possibly being named in the files, or do you think that's about how President Trump comes up in the files?
No, because we already knew President Trump was President Trump. The things that we've learned about him aren't new information to us. We when he first ran in 16 it was grab them by the – right? So we knew who President Trump was. And I don't believe that the abuse on women or the abuse on young girls is what the actual story is, because they've told us that, and we've seen other institutions, the Catholic Church, go through those type of instances, and nothing crumbled. But they're telling us that this information would tear down governments. And in America, the abuse on women or the abuse on young girls, doesn't tear down anything. They get slaps on the wrist, and most times, people don't even go to jail. So there's information that they're withholding that will tear down governments. It's not sexual.
You referenced the humanitarian crisis in Gaza earlier. What should Congress and the United States do about that crisis?
Oh, that is, that's the best question, because what we should do is immediately stop funding it. We should immediately cut ties with any country that is actively in a genocide. The United States and Congress should immediately arrest the war criminals that have been charged with war crimes under the ICC, and not be inviting them to their coffers and giving them standing ovations.
You're talking about Israel there.
I'm talking about Israel. I'm talking about BB Netanyahu. I'm talking about AIPAC and our allegiance to that situation, what they call our only ally at this point.
How would you rate the Trump administration's immigration policies and enforcement? What do you think Congress could or should do about that?
So I'm 40 years old, and for as long as I can remember, one side or the other, usually, the Republican side has been holding up comprehensive immigration reform, whether it was Mitch McConnell, whether it was Donald Trump, when he wasn't president, under Biden, but he was telling them, No, don't vote on it. Don't vote on it. So it seems as though our government creates the problem for themselves. They like the chaos. Both sides love the chaos there. They wouldn't want reform. They wouldn't want everybody to have homes. They wouldn't want everybody to have just enough, because they thrive on the chaos. The stock markets thrive on the chaos. So the question was, what should they do? But we need comprehensive immigration reform that allows people to have their dignity as they come here, that allows people to have a certified path to being here and not be called illegal while they're just trying to work and sustain as everybody else is anywhere around the world.
How do you think Congress could make that happen? Where does that political will come from to get to that major policy reform?
It comes from voting in people like me and people like me all over the country. The quickest way to get this money out of our politics, the quickest way to get this illogical thoughts out of our politics, is to vote in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which I choose to represent and we were saying, we're not taking the money. We're going to use logical decisions to make sure that the American people are sustained. And you don't get that from the corporate side of politics.
I'm talking in this recorded interview with Damon Lynch IV, a Democratic candidate for Ohio's first Congressional District. During the debate over President Trump's signature Big Beautiful Bill, as the President calls it, many Republicans fought to cut taxes, while many Democrats fought to preserve programs like SNAP and Medicaid. What do you think is the right balance there?
The right balance is to not put the least of us in the crosshairs every time there's a problem. So while TSA is underfunded, and people can't catch planes, private jets are still flying. The crosshairs shouldn't come to the poorest. The crosshairs should come to the most of us. That is the answer to that problem. There is enough money for everything. We seem to be misappropriating it.
As of this recording, as you mentioned, Congress still hasn't reached a deal to end the partial government shutdown. President Trump did order the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA workers. A big sticking point in all this was funding for ICE, which Democrats opposed without reforms of how ICE polices. Should Democrats have held up this funding?
No. I ran into my 12th grade teacher at the No Kings event, and I remember from English class, she taught me the Shakespeare line “All the world's a stage.” Even Donald Trump signed the papers to pay TSA weeks later, right? So they understand they are creating this pressure. They are creating this pressure not to hide you from anything else, but just to keep the pressure on the people there. Where we are at war in Iran there we can't pay TSA. ICE is showing up at airports and intimidating people. These are theatrical moves by a theatrical president.
Redistricting has made the first Congressional District more Republican leaning. The district also now includes Cincinnati, Warren County and Clinton County. What do you see as the challenges of representing those three very different areas. And how would you do it if you're elected?
I am going to always be people first. So to my brothers and sisters in Clinton County, moratorium on data centers. We have to get that under control. The government, all over America, the governments are forcing data centers on the residents’ properties in the resident's head, because they're signing NDAs years or months before, and then just giving the people the information when it's too late for them to fight. But the people in Clinton County, shout out to Miss Jessica, they have been fighting and they have been organizing, and it has been a beautiful thing to watch as they go against their fellow community members that are now sitting on city council and trying to let them know like we don't want this, and if we do get this, it has to come here correctly. To the people of Warren County, we are staunchly against this war. We are staunchly against our tax dollars being sent away overseas and used to destroy while we need infrastructure upgrades and we need our grids upgraded and our kids taken care of. And the people of Cincinnati, I love Cincinnati. That's my home. I eat a cheese Coney every week. Gold Star, not Skyline. We just have to recognize that everybody might not be for us all the time, and we have to make good decisions to at this point, save the world.
I need to ask you about your vote for Donald Trump in 2016. You told the Enquirer quote, “The people that support Donald Trump are some of what I call white supremacists. So it was always a protest vote against the Republican Party and the Democratic Party now,” end quote. Can you clarify for us how voting for Trump would be a protest vote, especially if you feel, as you said, like people who support him are white supremacists?
So all my life I've been fighting for what we would call civil rights, which is for Black people. If we're on the radio or if you see this, I'm a Black man. I'm a six-foot-seven Black man in America. And at the time, in February of 2016 Donald Trump was anti-establishment. Donald Trump was fighting against the establishment of this government, which is similar to what I'm fighting against now. So that protest vote, and I was also learning about the primary. It was in the primary, I was learning about the primary process and how it worked, and I think I worked the polls that year, that primary, and I learned that you could pull a Democratic ballot, or you could pull a Republican ballot, and they have different people on them, so I'm a Bernie Sanders fan then and now and I knew a lot of Democrats, and I couldn't get them to vote for Bernie. So at the time, I used my vote to vote for Donald Trump so that he could beat those corporatist Republicans. And I was interested in how that played out, and then it played out into Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton, which I didn't vote in the 2016 election, just for whatever reason. And I don't, I haven't voted often in any election, but I've been constantly watching and pushing politics and engaged just voting wasn't something that I deemed to be the most important use of my time at the moment. So now I apologize, and I've grown and I'll vote in every election after and including this one May 5. But no, so that's why I voted for Donald Trump.
So you mentioned that you weren't voting often. Has that changed? I mean, do you feel like voting is useful? Is that something you encourage people to do now?
I encourage people to find somebody to vote for, or something to vote for. So if you have something to vote for, then yes, we must go vote. It seems in the past few elections, there was only something to vote against.
I asked because I think some people listening to this might think to themselves, well, I'm hearing a candidate who hasn't voted. Why should I vote for him?
That is totally, if that's how you interpret it, that's totally fine. I would just ask if you, if you don't vote for me, take a good look into the person that you may have to vote for besides me.
So in 2016 didn't you cast this protest vote? Why that same year did you go on to give an invocation at a Trump rally in 2016? Can you explain that to us?
That was before the vote. So I wrote an op-ed about it, but I was at the time, meeting with a lot of Republicans, a lot of, I don't know, prominent Republicans in the area, and we were having these conversations, and they didn't want Donald Trump to win. At the time, this was, I don't know, February, January is way before nobody thought he could win. And they needed somebody to pray at the rally. And they said, would you do it? I said, yeah, of course. I wanted to see the rallies. And at the time, all his rallies were ending in riots, the Chicago rally, or they were punching people in the crowds. And this rally was supposed to be downtown the convention center, and they couldn't handle it. They canceled it, and they moved it to Sharonville, and it was smaller, or however it was, but it was still crowded room full of people, and I thought it was an interesting opportunity.
Have to ask you about this too. You made a Facebook post on January 6 of 2021 you wrote when I voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries, the only time I voted for him, it was for this moment, Hack the planet. What did you mean by that?
So again, I've been fighting for civil rights my whole life. I went to the Million Man March in 1994. I went to the Million Man March in 2014. I've been protesting my whole life, and I know that at that a Million Man March with 1 million Black people, we can't go do that. We can't, it's a million of us out there, and we can't go do that both times. And I'm like, man, listen, we mean you can't go do that. We can't storm the Capitol, okay, we can't storm the Capitol, but white people did. So it was interesting for me to watch. Hack the planet is from my favorite movie called Hackers. It came out maybe 1990 and they just they stormed the internet. So that was me sitting on my couch in the middle of COVID, just responding to what I saw on CNN in a Facebook post. Now it's being immortalized in this campaign, but that was a moment in time where I was like, oh, wow. They really going to storm the Capitol. And they did it. They kicked down the door and moved the police to the side, and the police just moved. Nobody shot them, nobody mowed them down. They let these white people walk up in there with impunity and disrupt everything, and I can't imagine doing that. I imagine I would get killed in the process. So that was my reaction to that.
You've never held political office before. What would you say to voters who might be worried about that lack of political experience?
It seems that the political experience is what corrupts you. So the fresh face, the fresh thought, is what I'm excited about. The political experience you already come with too many baggage, too many donors, too many people in your ear. I'm coming just to make sure we vote that humanity wins every time.
What's the most important thing that you want voters to know about you or that voters could know about you that they can't learn from your resume?
It's just the most important thing about me in this is that every day I wake up trying to make this country better, like every business that I've started, is to try to make the lives of the people around me easier, every thought that I have is to solve the problems that I see plaguing my community, whether it's from the trash or the food deserts or the lack of resources, the lack of mental health resources, the lack of doctors. When I when I talk to my dad, when I talk to important people, I'm trying to fix things, and I'm trying. Fix things. Now, that's what I need people to know. I don't know everything I could have done in the past. I did it, but it was always to fix what I see as the ills of this country, and I believe they're fixable. I believe that logically, we know everybody should have access to health care. I believe that logically we know that there shouldn't just be an excess of homelessness in this country or an excess of people who can't find food, nutritious food, any food, in this country. Logically, we know these things, but we're being sold that if there's not enough, but there is enough, if we just invest it correctly.
Greg Landsman
Greg Landsman has been the U.S. representative for Ohio's first Congressional District since 2023. He's running for re-election this year and faces an opponent in the Democratic primary. You're listening to Cincinnati Edition on WVXU, I'm Lucy May. Congressman Landsman joins me in this recorded interview to talk about the race and the issues before Congress. Thanks for being here Congressman Landsman.
Thanks for having me.
Why are you running for re-election?
I love this job, and I want to get better at it. I want to get really good at it. And the constituent services piece, we've gotten so much better at helping people through the IRS issues. They're having veterans issues, Medicare, Social Security, and you can have such a huge impact. There's all this money that we're bringing back for affordable housing and these community projects and getting better at that piece. Legislatively we passed the Social Security Fairness Act last term, which was a huge deal. We took on the Speaker, forced a vote. It's like $20 billion a year now going to our public retirees, teachers, firefighters, police officers, and there's a whole host of big legislative things we want to get done, moving forward, fixing the tax code, fixing health care, reversing the cuts those things, and just being part of fixing what's broken in America right now is I think one of the most important things I could be doing. So anyways, I want to keep doing it.
You were one of only four Democrats in the House to vote against a War Powers Resolution Act to stop President Trump's war in Iran. Why?
Well, it had failed in the Senate, so it wasn't going anywhere. But symbolically I wanted to be, maybe it was less symbolic and more just me being me and wanting to be as honest as possible. Which is I supported what I understood to be the mission, which was the regime was building this weapon shield around the enrichment facilities that had been damaged significantly in the June attack. And if they could build that back up, it would make it really hard for us to deal with them restarting their enrichment program, or getting the enriched uranium out of there and getting it to weapons grade. And so destroying that weapon shield, I thought was a really important thing to do, but it would take weeks, not months. So I submitted a War Powers Resolution that we should have voted on last week that said, look, you have 30 days, and that means it would have been over on the 25th or 26th or something like that. Giving the administration 30 days seemed sufficient to me. But any War Power Resolution that comes up now, I'll support.
Okay, so yes, more recently, you've said the war needs to end.
Yeah.
What do you think the U.S. has accomplished effectively in Iran? Is there more that needs to be accomplished?
So they have destroyed the regime's ability to enrich uranium. Doesn't mean that they couldn't ultimately get to a place where they're back up and running, but at the moment, they cannot enrich uranium underground, and they can no longer manufacture ballistic missiles. Again, they could build new factories, but they've destroyed those factories and a good chunk of the existing missiles, rockets and drones, which made up the beginning of what could have been and was likely to be a major weapon, shield that's over. I don't think they have many targets left. And so instead of continuing or even saying you're going to just be done. Pull back. You may have other things that have to get done here and there, but this operation should be done.
I've heard that discussion about uranium being enriched underground in Iran. How are you saying that was happening? How do we know that's happening?
Well they've admitted to it at this point that they've enriched this uranium. Anytime you're enriching uranium underground, you're doing it because you don't want the world to see they're the only ones that do this underground because they don't want anyone to see what they're doing, because they want to get to weapons grade uranium. The reason why it's so different than any other country is that these are religious fanatics that run the Ayatollah and others that run this regime. There are sort of normal political people that are in power too, but ultimately, the deciders are the Ayatollah, the clerics, and they have an apocalyptic worldview. If they get this bomb, they would use it, unlike other countries, they would use it to rid the world of infidels, and that would lead to a catastrophic World War event.
You've angered members of your own party over your support for Israel in the war in Gaza, with protesters showing up at some of some events where you appear. Your primary opponent has just launched a website calling you Genocide Greg.
Talk about your disturbing thing to do. But yeah.
Talk about your support for Israel.
I mean, mine is a, you know, is based on, sort of my understanding of national security and global stability. And we have a whole host of hot spots in the world. You got the Middle East, and then you've got the Taiwan Straits, and you've got Eastern Europe. And I think it's really important for us to lead in Eastern Europe, to push Putin back. In the Taiwan Straits to keep China from empire building and taking over Taiwan, and to deal with terrorism in Iran, in the Middle East. So that's where the support comes from. And most people want their elected leaders focused on two big things, which is improving the financial well-being of the people they represent and keeping people safe. And so my advice to folks who are frustrated here is to appreciate that most people want us working on fixing the economy, fixing the tax code, fixing health care, getting people the housing they need, investing in education, the things that help them and then the things that are going to keep them safe.
What should Congress and the U.S. do about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza?
I mean, continue to work with both the UN and Israel, as they get more aid into Gaza. But that, to me, is one of the things that we've seen some good progress on but ultimately, I've been a big believer that you just flood Gaza with aid. I think they're up to 500, 600 trucks a day, but if it were me, it would be 1000s.
Are you concerned about gas prices and affordability in general? What would you like to see Congress doing about …
Yeah, gas prices are awful. And you know, the sooner Trump can announce that they're done with the operation, gas prices will go down. Part of it is the uncertainty. In fact, the number one driver for gas prices is his uncertainty, the uncertainty that this man has caused because he can't settle on a narrative here, and he's constantly changing his mind. And it's got to be maddening for the military operative, generals and folks who are leading this to have someone so chaotic doing the speaking, and it's caused the oil markets to be where they are. The larger affordability issue is decades in the making. It is a health care crisis, it is a food and housing crisis, and it's going to require people with a ton of courage to go in there and break up the existing economy. This is what I care most about is fundamentally changing the economy so that it works for working people, which means you're going to have to tackle corporate consolidation. You're going to have to break up, almost every sector has the kind of consolidation that has caused prices to go up and wages to go down. I want a public option and to fundamentally transform health care in this country, a massive housing and transportation fund to give communities the money they need to rehab existing housing, build new housing. That's the key to get to a fundamentally better economy.
Is there the political will to do that in Congress?
Not at the moment. You're going to need a new Congress, and then you're going to need people who are willing to risk their careers to vote for a new tax system similar to 1993 when, the last time we had a more morally defensible tax code was 1993, we led to a huge economic expansion, an economic boom, a surplus, and about 50, 60, 70, members of Congress losing their jobs because it was unpopular at the time, but that's the kind of vote I'd take to fix the economy.
I'm talking in this recorded interview with Congressman Greg Landsman, a Democrat running for re-election this year. President Trump has fired Attorney General Pam Bondi. What do you think about the way the administration and Congress have handled the Epstein files and the people named in those files?
I mean, it's, it's, it's terrible. The Justice Department is supposed to be fighting crime. I know that sounds obvious, but that's what they're supposed to be doing. And instead, they're going after Trump's political enemies. And so Bondi is gone, and hopefully that will mean that somebody comes in and actually starts fighting crime again, and that includes the folks who you were in the Epstein files investigate. They haven't investigated any of it. And some of it has to do with the fact that these are big donors to Trump, or that Trump's in it himself, which is mind boggling, but not completely unbelievable. But either way, all of those people, people have to be investigated, and if they did anything wrong, they need to be held accountable, period. And you need to have a Justice Department that pursues justice and fights, goes after these, these criminals, as opposed to going after political enemies of the president.
But do you think this President will appoint an Attorney General to do that?
No, I don't. But you never know who ultimately gets in there, whether or not they have the courage to actually start investigating crimes again.
In a commentary last month, you said President Trump's immigration enforcement has caused panic and that his policy is tearing at the fabric of our community. What could or should Congress do about immigration policy and enforcement?
A couple things. One is stick to the reforms that we've been pushing for to fundamentally change immigration enforcement in this country, and hopefully we get that deal done. And then we got to protect the communities that Trump and congressional Republicans are going after, the current group is the Haiti Haitian community. And Trump has tried to remove temporary protective status for this community, at which point, if they lose their status, he's going to send ICE into Springfield and other places where there's a lot of folks from Haiti who left Haiti because of warring gangs, and they're fleeing for their lives. We got a discharge petition to extend TPS status for Haitian immigrants for three years, and we got to 218 on Friday. So we're going to force a vote and hopefully get Congress to act and protect this community, and then the next one and the next one and the next one.
What about broader reforms? Do you think there's the political will to reform the immigration system more broadly?
Yes, I think they're 100% in the country and in the Congress every time we get close, not surprisingly, it is batted down by Donald Trump, but we were close to having massive immigration enforcement reform, and he said, No. So the key is to get DHS funded, separate from any additional funding for ICE, which I think we're getting closer to, and then to get congressional Republicans to agree not to follow Donald Trump and on this or anything that goes against what they believe in or what's best for their communities, and just go ahead and be Congress again, an equal branch of government, as opposed to his lap dogs.
You mentioned DHS, and I wanted to ask you about that. As of this recording, a deal to end the partial government shutdown is still pending. How are you working to end the shutdown, and should it end if Democrats don't get the changes to ICE policies that they want?
Well, the ICE shutdown should not end until there are the reforms. The rest of it, TSA, Secret Service, Coast Guard, all those need to be funded now. We have been pushing for a separate bill that funds all the law-abiding aspects of DHS, and that's finally what everyone agreed to. We were going to vote on it last week, and then Trump said no. Now he's saying yes. So they've been playing this game with people's paychecks in their lives, andit's outrageous, and our national security. This is Homeland Security. ICE has plenty of money because of their big spending bill, so that isn't an issue. The issue is getting money to the Coast Guard, getting money to cyber security, getting money to Secret Service and TSA. And you know, we had a vote on it, or was supposed to get a vote on it on Friday, and after the Senate unanimously passed our version. So the key is to get that on the floor and we'll pass it. He just, he being Johnson, has to stand up to two people, you know, Donald Trump, and the most extreme member of his party, which is, I guess, a couple people, but that's it.
Redistricting has made the first congressional district more Republican leaning. The district now also includes Cincinnati, Warren County, Clinton County. What are the challenges of representing those very different areas, and how do you think you can do that if re-elected?
I mean, for somebody like me, it's not as challenging. I'm a very pragmatic, sort of normal, middle of the road guy who's focused on the things that are in this sort of Venn Diagram of where most voters. We all care about lots of different things, but most of us care about financial well-being the economy and our pocketbooks and how we're doing and our kids and our families and our communities, and then our safety. And those are the things that I'm most passionate about and I'm most focused on, and so that makes it easier to represent a diverse, politically diverse group, district like this one. That's where most people are staying, in that middle part of the Venn diagram. What is that part called? I don't know what it's called. But then everyone has other issues, and there are things that I have opinions about those things, but my heart and focus is on financial well-being, improving the economy and keeping people safe.
Do you think that the redistricting is going to make this race a lot harder for you?
Sure? Yeah. I mean, that's what you know partisan gerrymandering does. It's a group of politicians, Democrats and Republicans, who got in a room and decided that they were going to mess around with the elections and try to determine what was going to happen. And I think we're going to prove them wrong. I think we're going to win and prove that you shouldn't do this. Don't mess with people's elections. You should not decide as politicians. Voters should decide, not you.
Everybody else running in this primary, including your Democratic opponent, and all the Republican candidates are people who have never held political office before, and we've talked to all of them, many of them characterize you as a career politician in…
Congress for a couple of years …
You were on City Council before that. So they call you part of the problem in Washington. How do you respond to that?
They should talk to their voters. I mean, most voters see me as a change agent. I take on corporate PAC money. I take on the establishment. I took on the speaker to get this Social Security Fairness Act done, which had been sitting there for 25 years. When I was on council, it was the same thing. I like to rock the boat and push for change. And between the Preschool Promise and the transit levy and eviction prevention reform, massive investments in youth jobs, housing stability and the Social Security Fairness Act and a bunch of other bills we've gotten done, people know me as a good guy who works hard and gets things done and that's all they want. They don't want anything really more than that.
One of the candidates we talked to said he's for term limits. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I agree. I think there should be term limits. The House, the Senate and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court desperately needs term limits. So 18 years seems like more than enough for any of these folks, and I've signed the term limits pledge, but more importantly, I've laid out a full plan to fix the things that are broken in the country, including politics, which is a mess, and I'll be announcing a Drain the Swamp Bill, which with all of these reforms, including term limits for everyone, including the Supreme Court.
So if you do get reelected, what's your top priority?
Fixing the economy. I mean fixing the tax code. I mean alongside of that is fixing our democracy. And the John Lewis Voting Rights Act that would end partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression, ban dark money. You got to return wealth and power back to people. That's how you fix the economy and our democracy. And those are the two big bills. So if you go to our website or Google Greg Landsman, Our Great American moment, you can see our 10 bills to fix the things that are broken in the country. I think I'm the only member of Congress that has a comprehensive plan, and the first two are fix the economy, fix the democracy, return wealth and power back to people.
You've been in Congress since January 2023. What's something voters might not know about your track record in Congress?
I don't know if everyone knows about the Social Security Fairness Act and how that got done. The fact that it had been sitting there for 25 years, and we were just like, You know what, we're gonna force a vote. And it was a discharge petition before they were really a big deal. And now, because of the Epstein files and TPS and the ACA, everyone knows about discharge petitions, but this was like, you know it was, it was a rebellious thing, and it worked. And $20 billion biggest change to Social Security since Social Security.
Analysis
You’re tuned Cincinnati Edition on WVXU, I'm Lucy May. We just heard from the two Democrats facing off in the primary for Ohio's 1st Congressional District. Joining me in this recorded interview to offer perspective and analysis are University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven and Cincinnati Enquirer regional politics reporter, Erin Glynn. David what's at stake in this democratic primary is Greg Landsman, is he a vulnerable candidate?
David: In theory he should be. This is a district that was redrawn to make it less friendly to Democrats, and he is perhaps the most outspokenly non-conventional Democrat in the House today, when you add up the totality of his votes, including in the recent War Powers Act resolution. But having said that, he's campaigning seriously, he's taking his challenges seriously, and it's hard to take an incumbent out of Congress, and the high profile examples that we have, they almost require the incumbent not to be working hard. They almost require the incumbent not to be taking challenges seriously. And I think both in the Democratic primary and the race overall, Landsman is taking this all quite seriously.
So David, how angry are voters over Landsman's support for Israel and, more recently, his support for military action in Iran?
David: And you can add into that, he's taken some Pro ICE votes, some of them quite symbolic, but nonetheless a position that not a lot of Democrats take. You know, again, I think that these upset an awful lot of the Democratic base, any one of these individually, but there's also the question of what alternative is available to them. So this is a case where I think if you presented a strong, conventional Democratic candidate, this might be a really interesting primary, but in this particular case, an active incumbent against, you know, a primary opponent who is not necessarily running a conventional campaign and not necessarily in position to take advantage of the situation. And I think you know, Representative Landsman will explain his votes, maybe backtrack and moderate a little bit on them and try and assure the base that he's with them on most of the things they care about.
Erin of course, Damon Lynch IV is the Democratic challenger. Damon Lynch IV called his vote for then-candidate Trump in 2016 a protest vote when we talked to him, can you clarify the timeline there?
Erin: Yes. Lynch said he voted for Trump in the Republican primary in 2016 he said he never wanted to support Trump as a candidate, but that he felt a vote for Bernie Sanders, his preferred candidate in the Democratic primary. He thought that that vote wouldn't have mattered.
So he voted for Trump in the primary, but not in the general election. Is that right?
Erin: That's right. He said the 2016 primary was the only time he's ever voted for Trump.
Erin, what do we know about Damon Lynch IV’s voting record and how often he votes?
Erin: Yeah, he registered to vote in Hamilton County in 2002 this is from the Board of Elections records. He's not registered as a Democrat. He voted with an unaffiliated ballot in the 2025 general election, but otherwise, hasn't voted since at least 2021 which is as far back as the Board of Elections records go.
David, when we talked about immigration reform. Damon Lynch IV said this: “One side or the other, usually the Republican side has been holding up comprehensive immigration reform, whether it was Mitch McConnell, whether it was Donald Trump when he wasn't president under Biden, but he was telling them, No, don't vote on it. Don't vote on it. So it seems as though our government creates the problem for themselves. They like the chaos. Both sides love the chaos there. They wouldn't want reform. They wouldn't want everybody to have homes. They wouldn't want everybody to have just enough, because they thrive on the chaos. The stock markets thrive on the chaos.” David, what is he getting at here? Has immigration reform failed no matter who holds office? He seems to be saying our leaders have almost deliberately held it back.
David: Well, I think he has some of the themes right, but some of the details wrong. And in fact, Mitch McConnell is not a villain in this particular story, oddly enough. But you know what we have seen to simplify things, there hasn't been a bipartisan functioning immigration package that made it all the way through the process since Ronald Reagan was in office. But repeatedly, we've had moments where a deal has been struck and Governor. Mike DeWine, back when he was in the Senate in a previous political life, was a key figure in 2006 in a deal led by John McCain on the Republican side that would have increased enforcement but provided a massive and practical path to citizenship for basically every immigrant in the country and that made it through the Senate on a filibuster proof vote. Mitch McConnell didn't stop it. Filibuster proof vote. It had President George W Bush's support, but it failed when House Republicans wouldn't bring it up for a vote. We saw in the Biden administration, another reform package that was really heavy on enforcement, light on path to citizenship had the President's support, had the support of both parties in Congress, but was ultimately derailed when from outside of office, Trump told Republicans in Congress to stop the deal so that Biden administration didn't get any credit for doing anything that they thought was a good idea. So it's an interesting issue. It's a great example of how American politics can fail to function when there's a core agreement and at least a core willingness to compromise. Republicans like more enforcement, Democrats like a path to citizenship, and literally, since Reagan was in office, they haven't been able to come together to make meaningful reform happen.
David, when we talk to Congressman Landsman about the conflict in Iran, he said Iran has admitted to having underground uranium enrichment facilities. Is that confirmed?
David: Well, that's an interesting piece of information. It's true, but it's misleading. So that that's a fact. They do have underground uranium enrichment, but that uranium isn't usable in weapons. So you know, it's akin to saying, you know, if you ask me, am I going to make the NBA? And I tell you, Well, I can shoot a ball through a basket. You know, it's true, but it's wildly overstating the case.
David, do you see democratic anger over Landsman translating into significant votes for Lynch or into votes for any of the Republican candidates in this race?
David: You know, I think it certainly will dull some of the enthusiasm that Representative Landsman might otherwise get in a situation in which Democrats obviously were very excited to win the first district to have a Democratic member of Congress for Cincinnati and surrounding areas, I think even as that enthusiasm is dimmed, on balance, he will do well. He will succeed because folks value his potency as a candidate in November, and they value the seat, even as they may be disappointed in some of these individual votes and stances.