STEUBENVILLE–The race for Ohio’s 96th District seat in the House of Representatives has been heated, with both candidates slinging barbs at their opponent’s voting record and positions.

Squaring off for the Republican nomination in Tuesday’s general election are the incumbent, Ron Ferguson, and Frank Hoagland, a former state senator.

Ferguson, 40, is a Wintersville resident. He graduated from Ohio State University in 2008 with a degree in communications, is a small business owner and is in his sixth year in Ohio’s House of Representatives.

“It’s very clear I’ve made a significant impact in Columbus to make our area a better place to live, work and raise a family,” Ferguson said. “That’s evidenced by the over $1 million spent by out-of-state special interest PACs trying to buy this race and pick the representative, because Columbus doesn’t want an America-first fighter who’s going to stand up for eastern Ohio. Columbus just wants somebody that going to prioritize Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.”

Ferguson decries his opponent’s claim that he’s neglected his duties, describing suggestions he’d had missed 170 votes “ridiculous.” While in office “I lost both my grandmothers, and when my (daughter) was born she had some health complications and we needed to get her into see specialists,” he said.

Ferguson is critical of his opponent’s years in the senate, claiming he’d voted to increase to raise the gasoline tax to 10.5 cents per gallon and that he’d “voted to give millions to Somalis” and for “hundreds of millions of dollars in Hollywood handouts, and billions of dollars to the Intel corporation, which President Trump and Sen. Bernie Moreno (claim) have links to the Chinese communist party.”

“Those positions are simply not America first and they’re all things that I’ve opposed,” Ferguson said.

“I think it’s important to inform people about voting records but for him it’s all about mudslinging,” he said. “The reality is he was in office seven years and doesn’t have any accomplishments to point to in his own legislative record. As for me, I passed the Hospital Price Transparency Act and now Ohio is the only state in America where you are guaranteed hospital prices in dollars-and-cents amounts–not estimates, not hidden

fees or algorithms, but real fees and real prices for patients.

“I’m also the only person in this race that passed a bill to end transgender surgery on minors and take men out of women’s sports–those are kitchen-table issues that Ohioans in general support, regardless of party,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson also juxtaposes his efforts to end the state of emergency at the height of Covid to his opponent’s vote to confirm Amy Acton as director of the Ohio Department of Health and now the Democratic front-runner for governor.”

“She’s the one who locked down our state, destroyed business and cost our children a year’s education,” Ferguson said. “It’s a horrible vote–one that he has said, on the record at debates, that he doesn’t regret.”

Ferguson said he’s spent his time in office “leading on America First agenda.”

“A bill I’m carrying now is the ‘Support the Vote’ act to require a photo ID for every single voter,” he said, pointing out anyone voting by mail would have to include a photocopy of a valid photo ID for it to count. “Voters already need to show ID when they vote at the polls, it’s only fair they should have to do it when voting by mail.”

“Elections are the foundation of this country and they need to be free and fair and live up to the principle of ‘one person, one vote’,” he added.

Ferguson also has been vocal about doing away with what he describes as out-of-control property taxes, saying Ohioans “need real property tax relief and I’m the only person in this race who has consistently voted for it and never, ever for a single tax increase.”

“The way we really need to solve the problem, I actually have a bill already written to do it, would start by forcing Columbus to cut the waste–giving $600 million to the owner of the Cleveland Browns and $2 billion to Intel Corporation. And I actually created a website, drafttheplan.com, to require (lawmakers) to make these cuts and deliver the money to first responders and local governments.”

While those projects may bring people and jobs to Ohio and generate revenue, “look where they are–Cleveland and a Columbus suburb,” Ferguson said. “None of them are in Eastern Ohio. I was elected to represent Eastern Ohio, and that’s who I’m going to stand up and fight for each and every day.”

Hoagland, 62, makes his home in the Adena area. He spent 21 years in the U.S. Navy and 10 more working with the U.S. Department of Defense. In 2016 was elected to Ohio’s senate, representing residents of the state’s 30th senatorial district, and was re-elected in 2020. After retiring from the Ohio Senate in 2023 he helped the state create a counter-drone program, saying he hadn’t realized how important that work would be until he saw the recent U.S. attacks in Venezuela play out. He also started several small businesses, providing pre-deployment training for those being sent overseas.

Serving in the statehouse, he said, “was a learning experience.”

“There are so many bits and pieces to government,” he said, adding one of his biggest assets is his “ability to get along with everybody.”

“If you want to be argumentative, you’ll never get anything done,” he said. “I’ve always had the ability to community with other people and get along with them and work with (them), because if you don’t they just won’t listen to you. People have to respect each other.”

Hoagland said infrastructure, economic development and education have always been–and will continue to be–his priorities.

“That’s where our focus needs to be,” he said. “If we don’t get ahead of it and create some platform for economic development, where are (our young people) going to work? AEP is talking about a power plant–a fossil fuel plant, but that’s what we have here–and we’re going to need (young people) who are trained for those jobs.”

Hoagland said going forward, Youngstown State University’s expansion into Jefferson County and its focus on preparing students who are so inclined for jobs in the skilled trades will be crucial.

“We need to quit focusing just on giving kids jobs. We need to focus on giving them a lifestyle and a career,” Hoagland said, adding that Ohioans in general and the 96th house district in particular “have to keep our infrastructure squared away, If we don’t, nobody is going to want to come here.”

He said the way lawmakers influence those decisions is through Ohio’s General Revenue Fund, which relies primarily on sales and personal income tax revenues, and Ohio’s Capital Bill, which provides funding to state agencies, universities, and local communities for construction and big-ticket purchases.

“Those are the only two ways you can do it,” Hoagland said, pointing out his opponent had voted against issuing up to $2.5 billion in general obligation bonds ($250 million per year over 10 years) to assist local governments in funding public infrastructure improvement projects. The measure passed last year but Hoagland said his opponent’s opposition to it, “that upset township folks, anybody who does infrastructure work, union guys.”

Hoagland freely admits he voted for Capital Bill funding not for Somalis, as his opponent claims, but described it as a block grant to fund food pantries and address other needs in the 96th district. Hoagland said a couple dozen other organizations were included in that block grant, “they just happened to pick out the Somali thing because of what was going on in Minnesota.”

“That budget actually had tens of millions of dollars in it for mental health, for veterans, first responders, continuous police training for law enforcement personnel and infrastructure,” Hoagland said.

“I focus on what we can bring to our district, everybody is at that time,” he added. “We’ve got to balance budget and focus on what we can bring to district.”

Hoagland said he decided to run because “people were calling me up because they couldn’t get stuff done that they wanted done,” and described his opponent as “a better activist than he is a legislator.”