Republican Paul Gillmor cruised to an easy victory yesterday in his race for renomination to another term representing his party in Ohio's 5th congressional district.
He will face Democrat Roger Anderson of Bowling Green, a 30-year professor of political science at Bowling Green State University, in the November general election.
Mr. Gillmor turned back a primary election challenge yesterday from Rex Damschroder, a four-term state representative from Fremont who campaigned across the sprawling counties of the northwestern Ohio district charging that the incumbent had grown too comfortable on his Capitol Hill perch and had not paid attention to his district.
Mr. Gillmor, 63, countered with an aggressive paid media blitz that amounted to his most spirited campaign effort since first winning the post 14 years ago. He won by about a 69 percent to 31 percent margin.
“I'm very pleased with the results, and I want to thank the residents of the 5th District,” Mr. Gillmor said last night. “It's substantially better than a 2-to-1 victory and is a landslide in anybody's book.”
“I accomplished my goal of providing an alternative choice on the ballot. The voters did have a choice,” said Mr. Damschroder, 52, last night. “There's no sour grapes.”
“We did what we could, met a lot of great people, had a great time, covered a lot of territory. It's one of those things, you need a lot of money to win. Obviously, you can't raise it against a sitting congressman,” the challenger said. “This is the reality of the system. It's discouraging, but it's not anything I didn't know.
“If people are happy with a congressman who lives in Columbus instead of the district, then that's what they get. I wouldn't be happy with it,” he said.
The election turned mostly on Mr. Damschroder's charges that Mr. Gillmor was an “absentee congressman” who did not live in the district and who missed more Capitol Hill committee meetings than he attended. The challenger also charged that Mr. Gillmor missed key votes on important anti-terrorism bills.
Mr. Gillmor countered that he grew up in the district and understood its people and their needs. His advertisements claimed that he had held more than 100 town hall meetings during his 14 years in Congress, and that he was “one of us.” He never disputed Damschroder claims that he lived with his family in Dublin, a Columbus suburb that is more than an hour south of the 5th District boundaries.
In the closing week of the campaign, Mr. Gillmor flooded television airwaves with an advertisement in which Vice President Dick Cheney endorsed Mr. Gillmor as his friend. Slick campaign literature touting the Gillmor connection to the White House poured into Republican mailboxes in the district as the election drew near.
“I've never been an absentee congressman,” Mr. Gillmor said last night. “One of the reasons [Mr. Damschroder] did so poorly is that his charges had no basis.”
Going into the closing weeks of the campaign, Federal Election Commission campaign finance reports showed Mr. Gillmor with nearly $500,000 to spend on his re-election, while Mr. Damschroder did not raise enough to file a report.
While Mr. Damschroder purchased a 15-foot motor home, plastered it with campaign signs, and began driving across the sprawling congressional district stumping for votes in person, Mr. Gillmor chose to campaign mainly via paid advertisements.
Criticized for ignoring the district during a joint radio interview two weeks before the election, Mr. Gillmor countered the Damschroder charge, saying he had recently been in 15 of the district's 16 counties.
Gillmor supporters in Perrysburg, a section of Wood County that is new to the 5th Congressional District, said yesterday they felt comfortable with him because he was the incumbent.
Voting at Fort Meigs Elementary School, Jim Hummel said of Mr. Gillmor that he had “read a few more articles about him. He's been around a long time.” Mike Mullins, voting at a nearby YMCA, said the congressman is “just familiar. I like what he's done. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the race.”
Terry Tyson gave Mr. Gillmor his vote based on his incumbency. “I voted for Gillmor. He's the incumbent,” he said. “I don't know very much about either of them, to tell you the truth.”
Judy Finkbeiner echoed the voice of several coming out of the YMCA after casting ballots for Mr. Damschroder.
“I just think Gillmor has been in office a long time. I usually vote for change.”
Ms. Finkbeiner is a sister-in-law to former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner.
Perrysburg is in a part of Wood County that is new to the 5th Congressional District. State lawmakers earlier this year redrew the boundaries of the district to include those portions of Wood County not already included, along with all of Fulton County and Providence, Waterville, and Swanton townships in southwest Lucas County. It also added parts of Ashland, Crawford, and Wyandot counties, and a slightly larger portion of Mercer County. Ottawa and Erie counties were removed.
Mr. Anderson, the Democrat, entered the race after the official candidate filing deadline, and ran in the primary as a write-in candidate for the Democratic Party nomination. He succeeded in winning the 50 votes yesterday required for his name to appear on the November ballot.
First Published May 8, 2002, 10:07 a.m.