Ohio’s Akron-based 13th District, held by freshman Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes, began the cycle as one of the Republicans' most promising pickup opportunities: Its electorate is 82% white, largely working-class and voted for Joe Biden by less than three points in 2020.
But Sykes, the daughter of longtime Summit County state Sen. Vernon Sykes and former state Rep. Barbara Sykes, comes with a built-in brand that has proven difficult for the GOP to tarnish. And Republicans’ nominee, former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, has raised just $1.3 million throughout the cycle — a number on par with Sykes’ haul in the third quarter alone.
Republicans have been frustrated by Sykes before. In 2022, GOP nominee Madison Gesiotto Gilbert and her allies spent more than $10 million trying to link Sykes to Biden and tax increases. But Democrats successfully hammered Gilbert as a carpetbagging anti-abortion crusader, and Sykes won by a surprisingly comfortable 53%-47% margin.
This cycle, fundraising has become Republicans’ biggest problem here, enabling Sykes to establish an early lead on the airwaves that she has yet to relinquish. The 38-year-old
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