Sykes vs. Gesiotto Gilbert: Who will speak for Ohio's 13th Congressional District?

The two women vying for Ohio’s reconfigured 13th U.S. Congressional District are both millennials who grew up in Northeast Ohio – Emilia Sykes, a Democrat, in Akron and Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a Republican, in Massillon.

Both dreamed of becoming professional athletes – Sykes a dancer and Gesioto Gilbert a figure skater. Both graduated from law school. And both often wear crosses around their necks, symbolizing their Christian faith.

Yet Sykes, 36, and Gesiotto Gilbert, 30, have strikingly different world views about everything from abortion and labor unions to climate change and who won the last presidential election.

Some pundits have suggested the race for the 13th – which includes all of Summit County and the northern half of Stark County – is a localized repeat of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, with a moderate Democrat taking on a Make America Great Again Republican.

National money has followed, helping to fund attack ads on both candidates.

Whoever wins will give Akronites their first unified voice in the U.S. House of Representatives in about 50 years.

Until 2022, congressional district maps carved Akron into pieces. That diluted the city's political power and often meant Akron was represented by people with little connection to the community.

This year’s map leaves Akron and all of Summit County whole, in a district that stretches along the Interstate 77 corridor from Richfield to Canton and includes everything from cities to farmland, including a tiny corner of southwest Portage County.

Just over half of the voters who live in the district – 51% – are Democrats, and 47% are Republican.

Many national political analysts, including the Cook Report, have said the race is a toss-up. But one outlier is FiveThirtyEight, which in early October forecast that Gesiotto Gilbert had an 85% chance of winning.

Sykes is a familiar political name in Ohio, particularly in Akron.

Some joke that Emilia Sykes was born into politics because her mother, Barbara Sykes was pregnant with her while serving on Akron City Council.

Barbara or Emilia’s father, Vernon Sykes, also held the same Ohio House district seat from 1983 until 2013, when term limits forced out Vernon Sykes.

That year, Emilia Sykes – who said she always wanted to follow her parents’ path into public service – ran to replace him and won. She’s since been elected three more times to the Ohio House of Representatives, where most recently she served as minority leader until stepping down in December 2021 to run for the U.S. House.

“Every time I was elected, I made sure I provided my community with top-level service and accessibility and leadership they could be proud of,” Emilia Sykes said during a recent interview with the Akron Beacon Journal.

That experience, she said, has taught her the ins and outs of how government works, so that when constituents come to her having trouble with rent, or day care or health care, she knows how to get them help.

“I know I have connections and an understanding of the process that my opponent doesn’t,” she said. “I won’t have to spend the first year-and-a-half figuring out the job.”

It is true that Gesioto Gilbert has never run for any public office before.

But she’s not new to politics.

She’s worked as a Trump surrogate, a conservative columnist for “The Washington Times,” and as a television pundit, primarily on conservative media defending Trump, whom she first met on the beauty pageant circuit after being crowned Miss Ohio.

Gesiotto Gilbert has scaled back campaigning since mid-September when she gave birth to her first child, Marcus Gilbert Jr.

A campaign official told the Beacon Journal she was too busy to be interviewed by phone but arranged to have Gesiotto Gilbert answer questions in writing via email.

Gesioto Gilbert views her newcomer status as a plus.

“Voters aren’t looking to elect more career politicians like my opponent,” she wrote.

The 13th District wasn’t Gesiotto’s first choice to run in this election cycle.

Last year, she filed paperwork to challenge Democrat Marcy Kaptur for the 9th Congressional District, which stretches from Erie County, along Lake Erie, to Williams County on the northwestern corner of Ohio, bordering both Indiana and Michigan.

At the time, Gesiotto Gilbert provided a Sandusky address.

She said she jumped into the race because  of “the lack of leadership of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-led majorities in the House and Senate.”

Gesiotto Gilbert pivoted, however, to challenge Sykes after the extraordinary statewide redistricting battle that reconfigured the 13th.

Gesiotto Gilbert, who now lives in North Canton, said she was “excited about running in the district where I grew up and where my family lives today.”

Both she and Sykes have zeroed in on the cost of living and inflation as the top issues of voters in the 13th.

But whoever wins the seat will also have a hand in determining the future of American democracy.

The Washington Post this month reported that nearly two-thirds of GOP nominations for state and federal offices with authority over elections deny the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s 2020 win of the presidency.

If those candidates held power in 2020, they would have had the power to overturn the vote, and reinstall Trump as president even though there is no evidence he won the election, the newspaper reported.

The report identified Gesiotto Gilbert as one of 299 Republican election deniers running for office in November, including 173 who are expected to win. The Sykes/Gesiotto Gilbert race was too close to call, the newspaper said.

When the Beacon Journal asked Gesiotto Gilbert whether it was true or false that Trump lost the election and why, she didn’t answer.

Instead, she wrote a paragraph slamming Biden and his policies.

When asked if the country fully understands what led to the Jan. 6 uprising aimed at overturning the election of Biden, Gesiotto Gilbert said she condemns all political violence.

“There are multiple local and federal law enforcement investigations that are still ongoing today,” she wrote. “These criminal investigations should continue until their work is properly done.”

Here’s what Sykes and Gisotto Gilbert said on some other issues:

The economy

Sykes:

In the short term, she said she would look at the tax structure, aiming to bring a middle class tax cut, expand the earned income tax credit and reinstate the child tax credit that she said helped cut child poverty in half during the pandemic.

In the long term, she reflected on Akron’s history of being the rubber capital of the world before production moved around the world, taking opportunity with it.

“What we can do and should do is revitalize manufacturing,” she said, adding she’d support government policies that would rebuild supply chains and fairer trade policies.

Gesiotto Gilbert: 

The first thing Gesiotto Gilbert said she would do is rein in “reckless, unsustainable spending (that) has contributed to the historic inflation and economic recession we are currently experiencing.”

Second, she said she would lower taxes for Ohio small businesses, working families and manufacturers, repeating a Republican allegation that Biden and Democrats broke a promise not to raise taxes on individuals and families making less than $100,000.

Fact checkers have said the Inflation Reduction Act raises corporate tax, not individual taxes, though businesses may pass on some of their cost to workers, about 20%, through lower wages.

Finally, Gesiotto Gilbert said she would “unleash American energy production” to reduce gasoline prices, specifically criticizing the demise of the Keystone pipeline under the Biden administration.

The Associated Press has reported the pipeline would have contributed less than 1% of the world supply of oil, which would have a negligible impact on prices.

Labor unions

Sykes:

Labor unions created the middle class in Northeast Ohio and throughout the country, Sykes said.

“People in this community have been able to thrive because of worker protections and collective bargaining and safer conditions,” she said.

Union support, she said, is at an all-time high and Gesiotto “is out of touch with the community” on this issue.

In August, a Gallup poll reported that 71% of Americans now approve of labor unions, a number that increased during the pandemic. That’s the highest support for unions since Gallup began polling on this issue in the 1960s.

Gesiotto Gilbert:

Historically, Gesiotto Gilbert said, unions played an important role in Ohio, particularly in manufacturing.

“However, unions are not for everyone and some workers, such as younger and part-time workers, may not see the benefits of joining a union and do not support compulsory union membership and dues,” she said, adding that it’s possible to be pro-worker and pro-free markets at the same time.

Abortion

Sykes: 

Sykes considers abortion part of women’s overall health care and has said the government should not have a say in what women do with their own bodies.

Moreover, she points to an Ohio abortion law – which a judge has put a temporary hold on – that forced a pregnant 10-year-old girl to go outside of the state to seek an abortion in neighboring Indiana.

Cases like that are not uncommon, she said, noting that 538 Ohio girls ages 17 and younger sought abortions last  year.

“Those numbers are stark, and we should all be concerned about it,” she said.

The freedoms of half the population are at stake, she said. “It’s a world that’s really scary.”

If elected, Sykes said she would support federal legislation to guarantee a right to abortion.

Gesiotto Gilbert:

Gesiotto Gilbert said she supports the U.S. Supreme Court ruling this year on Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion.

Abortion laws should be decided by the states, she said.

In Ohio, a Hamilton County judge last month indefinitely halted the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks, a law which had no exception for rape or incest.

But the battle continues. Earlier this month, as anti-abortion marchers converged on the state capital, ​​Rep. Jena Powell, R-Arcanum, told the crowd: "The shackles are no longer holding us back as state legislators, and we can and we must be a voice for unborn children here in the state of Ohio."

Gesiotto Gilbert did not directly answer questions about whether she would support a ban on all abortions, whether women who seek abortion should face criminal charges and whether there should be exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother.

“While people can disagree on abortion, the majority of voters support common sense restrictions like outlawing abortions based on sex selection or when Down syndrome is detected in the womb as well as restriction on late-term abortions,” Gesiotto Gilbert wrote.

She also said she does not support bans on contraceptives, as she said some have suggested.

Climate change

Sykes:

Sykes has made climate issues one of the planks of her campaign, saying that access to clean water, clean air and a clean environment is a basic human right.

“We’ve seen the extreme weather events,” she said, saying Northeast Ohio is witnessing how climate is changing.

In Congress, she would support environmentally friendly legislation that she said could be a boon for Ohio workers, creating new sectors of good-paying jobs.

“We should take full advantage of that,” Sykes said. “It’s a win-win.”

Gesiotto Gilbert:

Gesiotto Gilbert did not answer whether she believed climate change is real, but she did say the United States is the world leader in clean energy production and reducing emissions.

“Instead of overregulating and obstructing our energy sector like Democrats have done, we must unleash American energy to lower costs for Americans everywhere.”

Beacon Journal reporter Amanda Garrett can be reached at agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Emilia Sykes and Madison Gesiotto Gilbert on economy, abortion, Trump