Today, outside the Lorain County Commissioner’s Offices, UAW Local 2192 members at Job and Family Services announced the launch of a major political operation that the Union will lead to oust vulnerable Commissioner Jeff Riddell in his re-election bid this November.
After defeating his primary opponent by just 18 votes in May, Commissioner Riddell enters the general election as a vulnerable incumbent. That creates an opportunity for the UAW’s large-scale political operation to take on one of Lorain County’s most vocal opponents of JFS workers and their strike.
“We have held the line, and we are not going to watch our county’s public services deteriorate while our elected officials refuse to do their jobs,” said UAW Local 2192 Bargaining Chairperson Gina Jones. “If the Commissioners elected to run the county will not solve this crisis, then the people of Lorain County will demand change at the ballot box.”
The UAW is planning to run the largest voter canvassing program in Lorain County alongside area labor partners, where UAW members will be talking to Republicans, Independents, and Democrats in Lorain County several times a week.
The operation will involve knocking on tens of thousands of doors and making phone calls to UAW families and neighbors – including both other UAW members, and members of union households. Between now and November’s Election Day, the Union is planning several statewide “days of action,” where hundreds of UAW members from across Ohio will come to Lorain County to knock on doors for the Commissioners’ race.
“It’s safe to say that we have a plan to knock on every single union door in Lorain County to tell them that Commissioner Jeff Riddell needs to go,” said Jones.
While the UAW plans to talk with voters about its endorsed candidates for governor, U.S. Senate, and Congress, it will also dedicate significant resources to the Lorain County commissioner race, including literature, canvassers, digital communications, and more.
“We’ve done our part offering an olive branch time and time again, as the Commissioners outright refused to even meet,” said UAW Region 2B Director David Green. “Meanwhile, the service crisis that JFS workers have been warning about is becoming more visible to everyone because the Commissioners are too stubborn to resolve the retention and staffing crisis in their own workforce.”
The UAW’s endorsed candidate against Commissioner Jeff Riddell is Carolyn White, an experienced public servant who has already shown a willingness with listening to working-class people in the County, unlike current Commissioners like Riddell and David Moore. While White is a Democrat challenging the Republican Riddell, Lorain County is the only County in Ohio that voted for both Sherrod Brown and Donald Trump in 2024.