Marietta Times, November 9, 2022; By Nancy Taylor
William Leslie “Bill” Johnson has won a seventh consecutive two-year term representing Ohio’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Johnson, a Republican from Marietta, Washington County, won by a lopsided margin Tuesday in the race against Louis G. Lyras, a Democrat from Campbell, Mahoning County. The votes reported at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night showed Johnson with 155,296 votes, 66.95% of the total cast, and Lyras with 76,657 votes, 33.05%.
For this election, District 6 included all of nine counties and parts of two others, with Mahoning County topping the long string of counties along the eastern and southeastern borders of the state, and Washington County anchoring the bottom of the district. Johnson was picking up about 375,000 “new” voters that hadn’t been in the district before, but it did not worry him. He told cable news outlet Newsmax on Monday that those people had been exposed to his media messages in past elections, even if they couldn’t vote for him then. “They know what I stand for, so that’s the good news,” he said.
The boundaries drawn by the Ohio Redistricting Commission were good only for this election, however, because the Ohio Supreme Court found the map to be unconstitutional.
Johnson, who will be 68 on Thursday, followed an Air Force career of more than 26 years with businesses he developed in the information technology and electronics fields.
He was endorsed in Tuesday’s race by former president Donald Trump and has had a strictly conservative Republican message with few or no exceptions. His U.S. House affiliations have included the House Energy and Commerce Committee and membership in the coal, natural gas and shale caucuses of that chamber. Lyras, 71, comes from a construction business background and has experience as a long-time small business owner. His message during the campaign closely followed liberal Democratic talking points.
Johnson issued the following message after the Associated Press called the race in his favor:
“Voters across Eastern Ohio sent a clear message tonight, and they were joined by voters all across the country. And that message is that Democratic rule hurts Americans. It hurts at the grocery store. It hurts at the gas pump. It hurts when Americans pay the energy bill. It hurts where American interests are attacked overseas. It hurts in our schools where our children have fallen so far behind. It hurts in our cities and suburbs where violent crime runs rampant. It hurts along our Southern border where illegals, criminals, gangs, and drugs like fentanyl are flowing across in record numbers … all because President Biden stopped the progress being made to secure our border out of pure spite.
“But now, President Biden has a choice. He can acknowledge that his agenda and his leadership style hasn’t worked,” Johnson continued. “He can renounce those in his party who sought to push our country dangerously to the left. He can admit past mistakes and correct them. Simply put, he can work with us on solutions that actually work … solutions that put Americans first. And if he does, we can make real progress, because we MUST make progress. I’m committed to do that … I hope the President is too.