FIFTH DISTRICT – Alaska became the 49th state the same day Bob Latta’s father, Del Latta, took office in Ohio’s 5th District Congressional seat in 1959, a spot he held for 30 years.
Now, Del’s son is running for his own 11th term in the same seat, with the election Nov. 3. He ran unopposed in the primary and now faces Democrat Brian A. Shaver and Libertarian Michael Veloff.
Ohio’s 5th District is evaluated as a safe or solid Republican seat, depending on the poll. Latta has taken at least two-thirds of the vote in the last three general elections.
The Latta family has defined the seat. With pressing political issues becoming more partisan, however, Shaver and Veloff believe in their chances.
What does a U.S. representative do?
Whoever is elected to represent Ohio’s 5th district Nov. 3 will join the U.S. House of Representatives. The job itself is designing, campaigning for and voting on federal legislation that best represents the wishes of one’s congressional district.
Ohio’s 5th district stretches across the northern, north-central, and northwestern sections of the state, running from the Indiana border eastward toward Lorain County.
The House consists of 435 district seats across the U.S., with every district up for election Nov. 3. Republicans hold a 219-214 majority, with two seats currently vacant.
Congress also sets the budget for the federal government, evaluating and determining how the federal government collects and spends tax dollars.
Here is a look at the three candidates, in alphabetical order.
Bob Latta
Latta is running for his 11th term in the House of Representatives, representing Ohio’s 5th district. He serves as the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy.
He ran unopposed in the Republican primary, garnering 100% of the vote after two opponents dropped out. Latta has the county’s political leanings on his side. The Cook Political Report rated the district “Solidly Republican” ahead of the primary.
He also has financial backing. Latta’s received more than 100 times the donations Shaver has on the campaign trail, a reported total of $1,461,648.
“We have fundraisers in Ohio. We have fundraisers in Washington,” Latta said. “In my first campaign, the Democrats came and spent $1 million against me … you always need to be prepared to take on issues, problems like that, you might face.”
Energy production is one of the staples of Latta’s campaign for an 11th term.
“We have to produce more energy in this country, and every witness that’s come before us in the last several years … has said the same thing,” Latta said.
“You can have all the energy in the world, but you can’t move it from point A to point B; it’s worthless. That’s that’s one of my top priorities right there.”
One of Latta’s other major concerns is the debt.
“We have a $40 trillion national debt. We’re now paying over $1 trillion each year just to pay the interest on the debt; we owe foreign creditors more than $9.3 trillion,” Latta said. “This can’t be sustained … One of the things I’ve pushed in the past is to have a balanced budget amendment for the Constitution.
“I think that’s the only way that we’re going to get this thing solved, because in 47 states, Ohio being one, either have it in their constitutions or in their statutes that you have to balance the budget.”
Brian A. Shaver
The Democratic Primary featured the densest competition of any part in the race for Ohio’s 5th District Seat. Four candidates, including Shaver, earned 21% of the vote or more.
Shaver received 28.7% of that, totaling 11,914 of 41,524 – just 1,208 more than the runner-up, Martin Heberling III.
“Some people have said that 3% is a huge margin of victory in a four-person race, but it didn’t feel like that,” Shaver said. “I felt like I ran a campaign that was focused on the general election more than the primary, because frankly … I didn’t want to run a campaign in the primary that I knew I couldn’t win a general election with.”
Shaver is a school teacher at Fostoria Junior/Senior High School and the current president of the Fostoria City Council. His platform centers on three alliterative pillars: affordability, accountability and availability.
“I blame 100% of our affordability crisis on the lack of accountability of our congressional representatives in D.C.,” Shaver said. “They need to understand the Constitution that they follow, and they need to understand separation of powers, the rules of checks and balances, and all of that.
“If our elected officials were public servants and accountable to the people that they serve, accountable to the Constitution, we wouldn’t have all of these unconstitutional, unfunded mandates happening through executive order that are creating the affordability crisis that we have.”
Shaver’s campaign has been funded to the tune of $11,664, 125 times less than Latta.
“I’m going out, beating on doors,” Shaver said. “We’ve gotten lots of yard signs out. We’re doing a lot of grassroots campaigning, a lot of grassroots fundraising. It is picking up … I’m certainly never going to win the fundraising war with any Republican, especially in this district.”
Shaver still works as a social studies teacher while on the campaign trail, which he described as, “somewhat disadvantageous.” Between that, the funding deficit and the district’s preferences, Shaver has an uphill battle.
“(I am) centered on the idea that I’m going to be facing Bob Latta in the general election, and that my goal is to beat Bob Latta,” Shaver said.
Michael Veloff
Veloff has taken a unique path to the general election. The 2001 Ohio State-Mansfield graduate hit the campaign trail with the tagline, “Drunk Uncle for Congress.”
He is a lifelong Ohio resident with a history in politics, working as a campaign staffer for Vermin Supreme since 2020.
Veloff’s trio of principles he has listed is equally unique. In Ballotpedia’s Campaign Connection Survey, he listed that trio as “Guns for Thots,” lowering the drinking age to 16 or lower and making Tuesdays optional. Now as a formal candidate, he’s walking some of those back.
“That was when I was in the early meme phases of my campaign,” Veloff said. “I actually have some solid platform issues, but I wasn’t sure I was even going to be on the ballot when I filled that one out.
“Although I do want to lower the drinking age, I think it would help the alcohol industry … I don’t see it as a problem to lower the drinking age now and let our service members and adults, be adults.”
For Tuesdays, “there’s no enforcement needed, but that’s optional. You either observe Tuesdays or you don’t.”
Veloff’s vitriol towards Latta is more personal than Shaver. He alleges Latta is behind his arrest in March.
“I have a personal vendetta against Bob Lotta because I’m pretty sure he’s the one who had me jailed … The day I filed to run as a write-in is the day I was supposedly served a summons for aggravated menacing,” Veloff said.
“What had happened was that last November I was suffering from nervous exhaustion. I was in my girlfriend’s building, and I walked into the wrong apartment and fell in a bath … and was completely disoriented and scared a young couple who were living in the apartment.
“But as far as Bob Lotta, he stands for everything I stand against. He’s a war hawk, having never served in the military. He’s voted in favor of every war.”
Veloff has begun taking the campaign more seriously lately, though that hasn’t stopped him from calling his Republican opponent names like “Bobby Lobby” and “Bob Latte” on Facebook.
One of the more serious campaign tenets is healthcare. As a former healthcare worker, Veloff wishes to see Medicaid become more accessible to everyone.
“I would like to see an expansion … of Medicaid administered by the states,” Veloff said. “Stop the private health insurance subsidies and redirect those funds towards increasing enrollment in state Medicaid plans and move towards a single-payer system.”
