Libertarians won't have candidate for local Congress race

SANDUSKY — When Republican Derek Merrin lost his U.S. House race to incumbent Marcy Kaptur in 2024, he blamed a third candidate, a Libertarian, for the outcome. He apparently won't have that problem in 2026. The Libertarian candidate in the 9th Congressional District, Matt Althaus, withdrew his candidacy. Because Althaus waited until late August, Libertarians can't field another candidate in the race. Libertarian officials told the Register they doubt that's a coincidence. The development appears to mean that thousands of voters in the district, which stretches over much of northwest Ohio and includes Erie and Ottawa counties, won't be able to vote for their first choice. In the 2024 election, Tom Pruss, the Libertarian candidate for the 9th District, won 15,381 votes, despite the fact that almost all Libertarians realize their candidate is unlikely to win. Pruss got 1,457 votes in Erie County. After his narrow loss two years ago — Kaptur got 181,098 votes, Merrin got 178,716 — Merrin blamed Pruss as one of the reasons for his loss. "Democrats propped up a third party candidate to siphon votes from us," Merrin said. After the 2024 defeat, Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly redrew the district boundaries to give the 9th District a more Republican demographic. Tom Monaco, the deputy director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, said Althaus gave the election board a letter on Aug. 24 withdrawing from the race. Althaus didn't give a reason but wrote, "I no longer wish to be a candidate." Althaus did not respond to a request for comment. The Merrin campaign also did not reply to an inquiry from the Register. Althaus' former campaign site is no longer available on the internet. Secretary of State campaign finance records show that Althaus donated $25 to Merrin in 2019, when Merrin was still a state representative. Donation records don't appear to show any donations by Althaus to Libertarian candidates. FEC records do show donations from Althaus to Republican committees, such as an approximately $100 donation on July 21, 2024, to WinRed, a Republican fundraising platform. Campaign finance records show that Merrin received money via WinRed. The withdrawal date is well past the Aug. 10 deadline for naming a replacement candidate. Monaco said the withdrawal appeared to be valid and that Althaus wasn't the first candidate to pull out of a race and won't be the last. David Gedert of Toledo, the other Libertarian who ran for the 9th District, lost to Althaus in the primary. Both candidates are from the Toledo area. Gedert told the Register he doubts the elections board in Lucas County would shrug it off if Republicans or Democrats were deprived of a candidate in a major race. "If a two-party candidate were to drop out, the Lucas County Election Board would move mountains to ensure they had representation and a presence on the ballot. Once again, we're seeing the extant structures of power and control do what they do best — protect entrenched power at the expense of the voices of the people," Gedert said. Pruss, who is running this year as the Libertarian candidate for Ohio Secretary of State, said it's unfortunate Libertarians won't have a candidate this time. "I see the Althaus candidacy as a desperate attempt to meddle into another's primary. If Althaus was a serious candidate, there would have been outreach to voters and an effort to stay in the race," Pruss said. Pruss said that when Althaus was running, he seemed oddly uninterested in working with Libertarian Party officials. "We reached out to Althaus on many occasions from both the county and state levels just for him to not respond," said Pruss, who also is vice chairman of the state party's executive committee. A Kaptur campaign spokeswoman issued a comment. "Derek Merrin and his political establishment backers seem more interested in rigging the playing field in his favor than earning voters' trust by making a case on the issues that matter to Northwest Ohio," the spokeswoman, Kylie Blitzer, said. "That's exactly the kind of insider politics NW Ohioans are fed up with — political insiders trying to engineer the outcome by drowning out the voice of voters. Derek Merrin owes Northwest Ohioans transparency and clear answers about the role his campaign played in the Libertarian primary." Pruss said party officials wonder if Althaus is a re-run of what happened with Jeff Kanter, who had run as a Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate. Libertarians had been set for a party primary for Senate between Kanter and Bill Redpath, a longtime Libertarian Party official. Kristen Wichers, a Libertarian activist, filed a challenge to Kanter's candidacy, arguing that Kanter hadn't met the requirements to run. Secretary of State Frank LaRose agreed and removed Kanter from the ballot. At the time, Wichers said that there appeared to be meddling in the Libertarian primary. "While I'm stopping short of alleging a formal conspiracy, it is hard to ignore Florida-based Republican operatives running a signature drive for a Libertarian primary," Wichers said. "It raises obvious concerns about meddling. If the Republican Party disagrees with that assessment, they are welcome to step forward and condemn this fraud."