Supreme Court Shuts Down Progressive’s Bid to Run in Ohio GOP Primary
Ronan “continued to advocate for his strategy of running Democrats as Republicans in deeply red districts.”
The Supreme Court on Thursday denied a self-identified progressive’s attempt to run as a Republican candidate in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District primary, a district President Donald Trump won by nine points in 2024.
Samuel Ronan, an Air Force veteran, was booted from the ballot by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who cited “integrity of the electoral process,” according to Fox News.
Fox reported that Ronan “signed a declaration of candidacy — under penalty of election falsification — swearing he was a member of the Republican Party.”
Unfortunately for him, “documents filed in U.S. District Court note Ronan was caught publicly admitting that his candidacy was part of a calculated strategy to run Democrats as Republicans in ‘deep red districts’ to ‘get a foot in the door.'”
The Court’s ruling rightly leaves LaRose’s decision in place.
Supreme Court blocks candidate after alleged GOP infiltration scheme exposed | Alexandra Koch, Fox News
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a self-described "progressive" candidate’s bid to enter Ohio’s Republican primary, leaving in place a decision by state election… pic.twitter.com/jC2SY9kehd
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) April 10, 2026
A report on the SCOTUS blog stated: [Emphasis mine.]
Ronan ran for the chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2017. During that race, LaRose said, Ronan “continued to advocate for his strategy of running Democrats as Republicans in deeply red districts.”
Last month, Ronan was removed from the ballot when a voter protested his candidacy, alleging that Ronan was “not in fact a Republican.” The Franklin County Board of Elections divided two to two on the challenge; the dispute then went to LaRose, who broke the tie in favor of the protester and remov[ed] Ronan from the ballot.
Ronan went to federal court, where he argued (among other things) that his removal from the ballot violates the First Amendment. But two federal courts declined to intervene. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit agreed with U.S. District Judge Sarah Morrison that although Ronan could change political parties, state law – which requires him to attest (among other things) that if elected, he would “support and abide by the principles enunciated by the Republican Party” – requires him to do so in good faith. Ronan had not shown, the court of appeals concluded, that such a requirement violates the First Amendment.
On Monday, Ronan submitted a 23-page filing on the Supreme Court’s interim docket, in which he sought “immediate injunctive relief.” Early voting in the state’s primary was set to begin the next day. Ronan claimed he’d been removed from the ballot “based solely on the content of his core political speech.”
According to SCOTUS blog:
Both LaRose and the county election officials asked the justices to deny Ronan’s request. As an initial matter, LaRose emphasized, the 6th Circuit was correct that Ronan is unlikely to succeed on the merits of his claim. “The First Amendment,” he wrote, “does not restrict the State from promoting order, fairness, and integrity in their elections.” Instead, he contended, states have “wide latitude to regulate party primaries and other candidate-selection mechanics” to bring order to the election process.
Moreover, the county election officials added, Ronan has other options if he is not included on the Republican primary ballot: he can always run as an independent candidate, for example.
Courthouse News Service reported that Justice Brett Kavanaugh “referred the application to the full court, which denied Ronan’s request without explanation.”
A glance through Ronan’s social media history tells you everything you need to know about his political worldview. For example, the following post is “pinned” to his X account:
From the River to the Sea Palestine WILL be Free!@IDF should be all summarily arrested, charged, and set before @UN Tribunal for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, along with: @POTUS @POTUS46Archive and all associated members responsible for allowing this GENOCIDE.
— Sam Ronan (@Ronan4Progress) July 10, 2025
And here is a Ronan post from last October:
Proof that Hamas are a Liberation Force Fighting for the Survival of the Palestinian people!!!#FUCKIsrael #FuckZionism #IsraelTerroristState #ZionismIsNotJudaism https://t.co/fOnF8gQ4dQ
— Sam Ronan (@Ronan4Progress) October 9, 2025
Ronan’s strategy isn’t entirely new. While still uncommon in modern politics, there have been instances of Democratic candidates attempting to compete in red districts by presenting themselves as Republicans.
In a YouTube video circulating online, a lifelong Democrat speaks to supporters in Shelby, North Carolina, saying, “I am your fake Republican candidate for Congressional District 14.” She goes on to justify the approach, arguing that “this district is gerrymandered.”
The video was published by CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). It’s not the kind of story you’d expect America’s legacy media to highlight, is it?
A far more common approach, however, is for Democratic candidates to campaign as moderates, and then, once in office, shed their centrist image and pursue a progressive agenda. Abigail Spanberger’s dramatic bait and switch has left many constituents feeling misled and betrayed.
The stark contrast between Spanberger’s campaign messaging and her stunning record in office is likely to feature prominently in Republican campaign ads this fall.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Huh. Not the result I would expect all the way up that chain of decisions. Except maybe the federal courts that didn’t want to touch it.
The Republican Party is a private club and therefore has a right to accept or reject members, choose their leaders, and define their charter. Hopefully the next step is to eliminate same-day party registration or open primaries where voters can vote for all parties.
Same goes for Democratic Party, Libertarian, etc.
Awesome post mainly because I have thought this for years!!
Next step afterwards let them choose their candidates without being granted public funds for primaries or caucuses.
When Liz Cheney revealed herself by her actions in office to be an anti-American Dem-winger, the voters here in Wyoming were ready to body-slam her in the primary. That’s because in WY, the Rep-wing primary IS the de facto election…whoever is nominated generally wins unless they’re so completely repulsive that they were nominated by machinations.
So Liz had instructions posted on her website and sent to Dem-wing voters in the state showing them how to change their party affiliation so that they could fraudulently vote in the Republican primary, and then later change their affiliation back again. It’s not technically federal vote fraud (it’s “just” a primary) but everybody knew she had done it. We handed her posterior to her by a 3-to-1 landslide.
I can’t think of another primary where the incumbent got trounced by (very, very) angry voters so thoroughly.
We tried to get a law passed saying that if you change your party affiliation you’re still not allowed to vote in a primary for 4 years, but it got shot down by RINO’s and GOPEr’s. Hmm, makes you wonder about them, doesn’t it.
Yeah, there’s history, and then there’s how it was “reformed.”
Originally, parties WERE private organizations. If they put forward a candidate, you knew he was aligned with what the party leaders stood for.
But the false god of “democracy” ruined that. Entitled people demanded that they had a “right” to a voice in a party’s choices, even if they had never done one damn thing for that party. In fact, nowadays, people are demanding that they have the right to vote in any party primary they want (just one per election, natch, but that’ll change) even if they have no commonality with the aims of that party.
Also, the two biggest parties conspired to become virtual branches of government. The US taxpayer pays for their primaries and their conventions (not so for any other party). They even control the presidential debates between them, ensuring that no interlopers can ever participate. Even the League of Women Voters says (lies) that they are “bipartisan” instead of “nonpartisan,” which is offensive in itself.
Meanwhile, the Democrats — ironically, home of all the entitled “democracy” floggers — cannot resist taking off the mask every few decades to present yet another “anointed” candidate from a smoke-filled room, as they did in 1968, 2020, and 2025, with absolutely no public input involved (or simply ignoring that input). And partisan Secretaries of State get to “determine” who is a “member” of party A or party B, instead of an actual party representative.
I can tell you from personal experience that if this particular incident had happened in Arizona, on a third-party ticket (a spurned D or R poaching the third party’s ballot access to avoid the costs of signature-gathering), the Secretary of State would have sat on his hands — “people can run in any party in which they’re registered with the state” — and the party can’t do squat about it.
I’m all for the original private organization mechanism. But you’ll never beat back the parasites, because entropy always wins.
Gotta come from real grassroot efforts at County level to get party primary rules changed. Once enough Counties are on board then they can push it across at State Party level. The first State is gonna be the first domino in a series and so reform will be desperately opposed. Make it simple; to participate as candidate for the party primary you gotta have been registered and voted in the party primary election(s) for the past six years. They can always try to qualify as an Indy in the general election so no potential candidate is being ‘blocked’ from running for an office.
Better still, in order to vote in a primary you should have to pledge to vote in November for the party’s candidate; and the easiest way to enforce this is to automatically count you as voting for that candidate, so you don’t get to vote again.
Fraudulently running as a member of the opposite party is most effective in states with straight ticket voting.
Truth is not a Left wing value.
Once you understand that then you can understand why this piece of shit Leftist felt he was entitled to run in a Republican primary.
this guy needs at least a dozen blanket parties,
“While still uncommon in modern politics, there have been instances of Democratic candidates attempting to compete in red districts by presenting themselves as Republicans.”
We’ve got at least 20 of them in the House right now,
Now do Geico & Liberty Bibirty…:)
This is becoming very common and has picked up speed in the last several years. Usually the Dem disguises him/herself as an Independent to run like in OK right now then takes money from Dems and uses ActBlue to raise money while always intending to be a Dem when elected. The problem for them is that now it is very easy to look back at their social media and call them out because none of them can shut up with their craziness and vile hatred of others.
“… Ronan “signed a declaration of candidacy — under penalty of election falsification — swearing he was a member of the Republican Party.” ”
So many people lying under oath and getting away with it is corrosive to our Republic and we have to put a stop to it.
Make an example of this guy.
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