By Megan Henry for the Ohio Capital Journal.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan reporting for Ohio Capital Journal-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

For the first time since 2008, two women are serving as the minority leaders of their caucuses in the Ohio Statehouse.

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, became leader in 2023 and Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, became leader in 2022.

"I couldn't be more proud to have two women leading the caucuses, but more importantly, beyond their gender, they're just both really talented legislators and leaders," said Ohio Democratic Chair Liz Walters. "They have different, but I think equally effective leadership styles that allow them to keep their caucuses together, and make sure the needs of all their members are met."

The last time two women served as minority leaders was during the 127th General Assembly (2007-2008) when then-state Representative Joyce Beatty and state Senator Teresa Fedor were the minority leaders.

Antonio and Russo are navigating a Republican supermajority.

"I think they really work well and balance each other, which goes a long way towards making the Democrats as a whole very effective," Walters said. "When they work together, right across chambers, it helps overcome a lot more of the obstacles and make them a more formidable force."

But neither of them initially had political aspirations.

Antonio's path to Senate Minority Leader

Antonio, 68, first got involved in politics at the local level when she advocated for a skatepark in Lakewood for her daughter. She went to city council, but was disappointed the council members didn't seem to be paying attention to her.

"I could do that job," she remembered saying when she got home that night.

But she ultimately decided to run for office in 2004 after Ohio passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

That caused many of their friends to move out of state, but Antonio and her now wife Jean committed to staying in Ohio to make it better.

"We felt like LGBT folks were being attacked," she said. "Certainly we were being marginalized and told that we were less than."

There was an opening on Lakewood City Council in 2005, so she ran and ended up serving two terms. Then the House seat for her district opened up in 2010 so she ran and got elected - making her the first openly gay person to be elected to the Ohio General Assembly.

"A lot of people didn't really know how to talk about it," she recalled when she was elected in 2010.

She married her long-time partner Jean in 2015 after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

Antonio served for eight years in the Ohio House of Representatives before being elected to the Ohio Senate in 2018, where she once again made history by being the first openly gay person to be elected Senate Minority Leader.

"One of the things I appreciate most is her tenure as a public servant," Walters said.

People will often pull Antonio aside and tell her about a family member who is part of the LGBTQ community.

"I'm happy that I'm able to have those conversations with folks because I think every conversation that's had opens the door for some understanding and ... I really do believe it makes a change in the long run," she said.

Ohio GOP lawmakers have introduced a slew of anti-LGBTQ legislation this General Assembly and Antonio will often speak up against those bills on the Senate floor. Notable among them is House Bill 68, which bans transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming medical care. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the bill, but the House and the Senate overturned it. The law is set to take effect on April 23, but the ACLU of Ohio will file a lawsuit in an attempt to stop the ban on gender-affirming care.

"I'm definitely where I am supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to be doing," she said. "It's really important to me in the room where it happens. And as the minority leader, I am in the room where it happens."

Some highlights of her career so far include working on bills that helped closed the loophole for people who are adopted to get original information, cut down on the response time for people experiencing a stroke and allowing pharmacies to give vaccines.

Before launching her political career, she taught students with behavioral problems and learning disorders for 10 years in Cleveland.

"I loved those kids and I always tell people that I learned everything I needed to know about the legislature and dealing with my colleagues in the legislature from troubled youth because you have to have a sense of humor, never show fear, really like people and make it part of your mission to find some kernel of commonality to start with to be able to communicate with them," she said.

Russo's path to House Minority Leader

Russo, 47, never intended to be in politics. She grew up in Mississippi and moved around quite a bit with her husband who was active duty military before deciding to put roots down in Ohio to be close to her in-laws.

She worked in health policy for more than twenty years, but a couple key moments lead to her to run for office.

The first was the 2016 Presidential Election where Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

"2016 got those of us who had always been very active voters off the sidelines and into the arena in a way that probably no other election has," she said.

The following year, there were efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and freeze Medicaid expansion enrollments in Ohio, so she worked with folks doing advocacy work at the state and federal level. People encouraged her to pursue politics, but she brushed that aside since she was enjoying her career and her youngest child was less than a year old.

But she ultimately decided to throw her hat in the ring when the House seat in her district opened for the 2018 election.

"I thought, well, it's now or never," she said. "I knew absolutely nothing about running a campaign."

Russo, a mother of three, often had her children with her when she was campaigning and knocking on doors. She ended up not only winning the election, but flipping the district seat blue.

She ran for Congress in 2021, but lost to U.S. Rep. Mike Carey 58% to 42%. The next year, she was elected House Minority Leader.

Walters said Russo has "an aptitude and innate ability to lead her caucus and maneuver, playing chess every day rather than checkers."

As minority leader, Russo tells the members of her caucus they need to cultivate relationships and find common ground in order to be successful.

"In a super minority, you are constantly having to figure out how to navigate this place, so that you can be effective and it's not always in big ways, like you pass a big massive piece of legislation," Russo said. "It can be in little ways- you get part of your legislation into a bill, you make bills better, you get things into the budget, you have wins there."

But sometimes finding common ground can be tricky.

"You also don't want to sacrifice your values," she said. "You also want to be fearless in calling (things) out when needed. Don't pull your punches."

Russo feels fortunate to live about 15 minutes away from the Statehouse, so she can run home to take one of her kids (ages 17, 14 and 7) to practice and then come back, if needed, for an event at the Statehouse later that night.

"I realize that's a luxury," she said. "In some ways, it's my proximity to the Statehouse that allows me to do this job with three kids at home and I know that that's not normal for most people who are in these roles."

Advice for future women politicians

Russo's advice for women looking to get into politics is to not wait around for approval to run for office.

"As women, we're looking for someone to give us permission to take on these leadership roles or to run for office or whatever - you do not need that," she said.

Antonio's suggestion to women who are in politics or who want to go into politics is to not take anything personal.

"There are definitely things that make you feel like you get a gut punch some days," she said.

Something that can turn women away from politics is the lack of privacy, Russo said

"Politics is an industry that's tough for anyone, but it can be especially tough for women," Walters said. "It's a field that's traditionally dominated by men with lots of strong opinions and feelings. ... Leaders Russo and Antonio work twice as hard as their counterparts while overcoming unique obstacles. Even though they shouldn't have to."

What's next for Antonio and Russo?

Antonio is term-limited and she's not sure what she'll do after her time in the Statehouse is up.

"What I do know is I do not intend to go back to the House," she said.

Russo will be up for re-election for a fourth term this November. If she wins, she'll be term-limited in the House. So what's next after her time in the House is up?

"To be determined," she said. "There's a lot of this that's out of my control. And then a lot of this is about timing, and often many unknown factors."

And as for a potential run for Ohio Governor in 2026?

"I know there's been a lot of chatter in that space," she said. "Let's get through 2024 first and we'll see what happens."


Megan Henry wrote this article for the Ohio Capital Journal.


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By Marilyn Odendahl for The Indiana Citizen.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Indiana Citizen-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.

For St. Joseph County Circuit Court Clerk Amy Rolfes, the statistics only confirmed what she had been seeing and hearing from voters in the days and weeks leading into the Nov. 5 election.

Nearly 59,000 registered voters in the Northern Indiana county cast a ballot either by mail or by going to the polls before Election Day, topping the number of voters who visited the polls on Nov. 5 by more than 5,000.

However, Rolfes already knew early voting was popular by the public's reaction to St. Joseph County's third early-voting site that was opened this year for the first time. The new polling place was opened two weeks before the general election in Center Township's public library, located in the southern portion of the county.

The site was busy every single day it was operating, Rolfes said, and voters were thanking the staff giving them a convenient place to vote.

"Clearly the voters have spoken," Rolfes said. "They enjoy early voting."

The final vote tallies from the November election show the popularity of early voting was similar across the state to what Rolfes saw in St. Joseph County. According to data from the Indiana Secretary of State, 1.6 million eligible Hoosier voters - 54% of all who cast a ballot in the 2024 general election - voted either absentee or in person prior to Election Day. Comparatively, 1.87 million registered Indiana voters - 61% of those who voted - went to the polls early in the 2020 general election.

Despite the early voting numbers, Indiana's overall voter participation slipped this year. The secretary of state reported that 4.84 million Hoosiers were registered to vote in November, which is 86,085 more than were registered in November 2020. However 2.97 million, or 61%, voted in the 2024 general election, which is 94,349 fewer than the 3.07 million, or 65%, who voted four years ago.

Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, said she is disappointed that lawmakers are not doing more to improve the state's voter turnout numbers. Changes that would enable more Hoosiers to vote include same day voter registration, extending voting hours, and prohibiting candidates and their supporters from being any closer than, at least, 100 feet from the entrance of a polling site on Election Day.

"That's frustrating when clearly we have a big problem with turnout and zero problems in term of (election) security, yet our policymakers continue to make voting more restrictive in the name of making it more secure," Vaughn said. "We should be opening it up in the name of getting more people involved."

Demand continues for early voting

Like St. Joseph County, Clark County in Southern Indiana opened another early voting site for the November election.

Clark County Circuit Court Clerk Ryan Lynch said the second polling place, at the R.E.M.C. building along U.S. 60, was a more convenient option for voters in the middle and northern parts of the county. They did not have to travel to the courthouse in downtown Jeffersonville to vote.

Lynch said he believes the additional polling location motivated more people to vote early. Although the 22,522 voters in Clark County who voted either by mail or in-person before Election Day was down from the 28,666 who cast an early ballot in 2020, he does not expect interest in early voting to wither.

"I think we should definitely plan for big turnouts for early voting and put more resources into that to be prepared," Lynch said.

After the Marion County Election Board voted against extending early voting by two hours in the morning, Marion County Circuit Court Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell kept the polling site in the City County Building open until 10 p.m. the Saturday and Sunday before the Nov. 5 election. She said she added hours in the evening to make voting more convenient and had noticed that individuals who voted in the evening were wearing uniforms, indicating they were shift workers in hospitals, law enforcement agencies and private companies.

"It worked," Sweeney Bell said, but she did not commit to extending the hours in future elections.

In Marion County, 165,186, or 46% of registered voters, cast an absentee or early ballot in 2024. That was down from the 215,931, or 55% of registered voters, who voted before Election Day in 2020.

Not only were Hoosiers voting early this year, but they were, apparently, seeking answers to their voting questions sooner.

Ami Gandhi, director of strategic initiatives and the Midwest Voting Rights Program at the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, said during the early-voting period, more Indiana voters were calling the 866-OUR-VOTE election protection hotline the CLCCR established. Also, they were calling before the voter registration deadline passed and before absentee voting began.

"Across the board, we heard from voters in many different parts of the state who have an interest in expanded access to early voting, including voters who wanted more locations in their county (and) voters who were seeking expanded hours and who were shocked, and at times upset, by the relative early end time to early voting on any given day," Gandhi said.

A 'chilling impact,' low turnout

Wells and Whitely counties recorded the highest turnout rates in Indiana at 73% each in November. Marion and St. Joseph counties tallied the lowest turnout rates in the state at 55% each.

Sweeney Bell was disappointed by her county's low turnout. She said the first hour the polls were open on Election Day, about 40,000 people voted in Marion County; however, the rush of voters that usually comes between 4 and 6 p.m. never materialized.

"I'm baffled when people have such power and choose not the exercise it," Sweeney Bell said, adding that voting is essentially asking people who they want making the decisions that will affect every part of their lives. She said she is disappointed and not sure why people chose to stay home, rather than go vote.

"If I knew why, I could do something about it," Sweeney Bell said.

Rolfes tried to encourage voting in St. Joseph County by producing a couple of educational videos. She was allowed to use the local public television station's studio for an hour and half and she made four "super nerdy" videos, providing instruction on such things as voting by mail and using the voting machine to cast a ballot.

"Voting information is key to increasing voter turnout," Rolfes said.

Vaughn, of Common Cause Indiana, said she believes some new voters and naturalized citizens did not go to the polls this year because of the claim by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales about noncitizens voting in state elections. The two elected officials announced a few weeks before the Nov. 5 election, that they had asked the federal government to verify the citizenship status of 585,774 individuals on Indiana's voting rolls.

Calling the move by Rokita and Morales a "political stunt," Vaughn alleged the whole point of creating the list and the making announcement was to have a "chilling impact" to discourage people from voting. She said the election protection hotline did not get any calls from individuals who had their citizenship status challenged when they tried to vote, but some new voters did call the CLCCR hotline with concerns about causing trouble if they cast a ballot.

"How widespread that (was), I can't really say, but we, at least, heard from a few people and I've done this long enough to know when you get a few calls, there are many more people who didn't call," Vaughn said. "They just stayed home."

Intimidation incidents rising on Election Day

Along with Indiana voters asking for the location of their polling place and what they should do if the poll book does not have them listed as a registered voter, Gandhi said the election protection hotline also received calls about voter intimidation and aggressive electioneering at some polling places.

Reports of intimidation included Hamilton County, where a group of individuals were standing outside a polling place waving Make America Great Again flags and harassing voters, according to CLCCR and Vaughn.

Sweeney Bell said in Marion County, poll worker training was updated to include de-escalation techniques. The additional instruction was in response to the false rhetoric about insufficient election security and ineligible voting, she said.

"I have no worries about the security of the ballot," Sweeney Bell said. "I worry about the security of the poll workers."

That training appears to have helped defuse an incident at a Marion County polling place that is still being investigated and could result in criminal charges. According to Sweeney Bell and Vaughn, a man became belligerent and shouted profanities, after he was told he had to remove his Make America Great Again hat and turn his T-shirt, which identified a specific candidate, inside out. The man took off his shirt, revealing he was carrying two guns and a knife. The police were called and the poll workers were able to get the man through the voting process as quickly as possible so he left with harming anyone.

Sweeney Bell said a report detailing what happened is still being compiled. The Marion County Election Board is scheduled to meet Dec. 12, she said, and the members will talk about the incident.

"I don't think it's over," Sweeney Bell said.

In Clark County, Lynch said poll workers at one voting site were also able to defuse a situation on Election Day. Someone came to the polling place and wanted to sit and watch the machine that tabulates all the ballots. The workers at the site enlisted help from the clerk's office and the staff was able to mitigate the situation so the individual left and police did not have to be called, he said.

Vaughn said the misinformation and intimidation has gotten "exponentially worse" since 2016. Indiana's laws do not provide much protection or prevention of escalating situations, she said, noting the state allows people to electioneer within 50 feet of the polling place, one of the shortest distances in the country, and while the state permits voting sites to restrict weapons and post signs, the statute has no teeth, so officials can do little if anyone violates the restrictions.

"People (are) being very hostile to voters who they perceive to be making different choices from them," Vaughn said. "Hoosiers need to practice a lot more tolerance during election season than we have been. It just seems to be getting worse each presidential election year. We desperately need somebody to bring the temperature down."


Marilyn Odendahl wrote this article for The Indiana Citizen.


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As 2025 begins, there will be a record number of women serving in state legislatures nationwide.

More than 2,400 women will hold state legislative offices, representing more than 33%. Maine ranks ninth in the nation for statehouse gender parity with women holding 43% of seats.

Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, is pleased the trend is moving in the right direction.

"We need to see bigger jumps in terms of the numbers of women running and then getting elected in order to get closer to parity," Sinzdak pointed out. "We're certainly making progress but there's a ways to go."

Sinzdak explained when women run for office, they win, and it is good for democracy. She noted research shows women are more likely to build consensus among lawmakers and work across the aisle.

The election of Republican Kelly Ayotte as New Hampshire's next governor means a record 13 women will serve as a state chief executive next year, including Maine Gov. Janet Mills. Sinzdak argued the women serve as role models for other women to run for public office but cautioned recruitment efforts for women candidates are still lacking.

She acknowledged caregiving responsibilities often prevent women from running, along with the double standard they face from the public.

"Voters want them to be likeable as well as tough," Sinzdak observed. "Whereas for a lot of male candidates, they don't necessarily need to be likable they just need to be seen as being able to do the job."

Sinzdak emphasized women bring their unique life experiences to the job. In Maine, women lawmakers were instrumental in passing the state's new Paid Family and Medical Leave program and codifying reproductive freedoms into law. Still, the gains for women in statehouses nationwide come as Vice President Kamala Harris failed in her effort to become the first woman president.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.


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Some experts contend part of the reason Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election was because of what they're calling "misogynoir", the intersection of sexism and racism.

In 2016, Nevadans supported making Hillary Clinton the first woman president. In 2020 the Silver State backed Joe Biden and Harris, the first woman vice president. But last month, Nevada was won by President-elect Donald Trump.

LaTosha Brown, cofounder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, said despite the loss and Trump's relentless personal attacks on Harris, millions of Americans did vote for her because of what she embodied.

"We cannot also accept this idea that because she was a woman and she was Black, that in fact was a scarlet letter for her," Brown asserted. "In fact, part of the reason why he attacked it was because it was a superpower as well."

Brown argued while Trump made a conscious effort to weaponize gender and race, it also was what made Harris so attractive to many others. But since the election was called and Harris lost every battleground state to Trump, the Democratic Party has been regrouping and trying to figure out what went wrong. While some are citing outside forces, others believe it was Democrats' inability to address issues affecting the working class.

Melanie Campbell, CEO of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation, said despite 92% of Black women voting for Harris, she is now deeply worried about why no Black women are in the running to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee. The committee is responsible for organizing and coordinating strategy for Democratic candidates to win local, state and national offices.

"That is one of the things that I see that we have to address and that is how we deal with our money, how we put our money in and make demands because we do write checks," Campbell noted. "And the other has to do with how we find ways to fund our politics."

Campbell pointed out exit polling showed more than 50% of white women voters supported Trump. She added it raises the question of who is a true ally of Black women's interests.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.