Up for re-election in 2016, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman has his first challenger.
Democrat P.G. Sittenfeld, a member of the Cincinnati City Council, said he will challenge Portman, a Republican, for his Senate seat in 2016.
“I believe that I have got the right kind of experience,” Sittenfeld told the Huffington Post Thursday morning. “There is good experience, and there is bad experience — and bad experience is being a Washington insider who, for more than a quarter of a century, stacked the deck against the middle class.”
Sittfeld, at 30 years old, would be one of the youngest members of Congress if elected. Portman, 49, has already collected $5.8 million in his re-election campaign.
According to the Northeast Ohio Media Group, the parent company of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer newspaper, Sittenfeld has officially launched his campaign and will stay in the Senate race no matter what former Gov. Ted Strickland does.
“I have enormous admiration for Gov. Strickland and for his service,” Sittenfeld told the Huffington Post. “What I’m focused on right now is mounting a winning campaign that I think speaks to the issues that Ohioans care about. I’m not thinking about who else is going to get in or not get in. I’m thinking about how can I connect with and hear from Ohioans.”
Portman, who previously served in the House and in the George W. Bush administration, won his Senate seat in 2010 against Democratic nominee Lee Fisher by nearly 20 points. Considered a possible 2016 presidential candidate, he announced in early December he would not make a White House bid and instead intended to focus on winning his second term in the Senate.
