Poindexter seeks to represent Ashland County in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District

ASHLAND — Voters in Ashland County will choose between four candidates seeking to represent them in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District.

Ashland County was previously included under Ohio’s 4th District. The Ohio Redistricting Commission in October 2025 adopted new federal congressional districts ahead of the 2026 election cycle.

District 7 includes Ashland and Medina counties, along with portions of Wayne and Cuyahoga counties.

Candidates seeking to represent Ashland County in the 7th District include Republican incumbent Max Miller, Democrat Brian Poindexter and write-in candidates Andrey Martinichin and Thahbia Asad.

The winner will begin their term Jan. 3, 2027. It will expire Jan. 2, 2029.

Ashland Source recently conducted interviews with Miller, Poindexter and Martinichin using some of the questions developed by author and reporter Amanda Ripley as a way of cutting through conflict with questions that “complicate the narrative.”

Multiple messages were left by Ashland Source with Asad, but no responses to those requests were received.

Brian Poindexter

Below is the balance of the conversation with Poindexter, which has been edited only for brevity and clarity.

Background: Poindexter, 46, is a union ironworker and apprenticeship instructor who has also served as an at-large member of Brook Park City Council since 2017. He is a graduate of John Marshall High School and earned an associate degree from Cuyahoga Community College, according to Ballotpedia.

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Ashland Source Q&A with Poindexter:

Ashland Source: What issues do you think divide Ohioans the most these days?

Poindexter: A lot of social issues have been a really dividing factor. They want people to be distracted and divided by different social issues that really aren’t top of mind for most folks. That’s why my campaign has really been focused on the things that unite us. You know, cost of living is up for everybody, not just one side or the other. I’m hoping to fight to bring costs down for everybody, while also making sure that people who work for a living, whether they’re (a) Democrat, independent or Republican, can make good wages so they can afford things. I think that’s what is unique about my campaign compared to others, is that I’m really running on the issues that affect all of us.

Ashland Source: Are there any answers that you think are being suggested by national politicians or elected officials from both sides of the aisle that are oversimplified or answers that sound really good, but are truly oversimplified?

Poindexter: I think, honestly, the opposite of that. I think they’re making some of the issues more complicated than they need to be. Like cost of living, there’s a very simple solution to solving the cost of living — we can get out of this war. It’s a war of choice. It’s a war that nobody wants. It’s a war that’s driven up gas prices, it’s driven up costs for everyday goods and it costs you more to go to the store and do things with your family. That one act would lower costs immediately. Sometimes the issues get convoluted. It’s almost like they make them more complicated than they have to be. One thing I’ve learned in my life as a worker is, you know, when you have a lot of chaos and different things piling up on you, sometimes we got to just get back to the basics. I got bills piling up, kid needs to go into practice, kid needs to go to the doctor, I just focus on the things that are most important, like I show up for work. I make sure my mortgage is paid. And then all the other things kind of fall into place once you just take care of the basics.

Ashland Source: Policies aside, it seems clear that Ohio voters and voters around the country are more divided than ever on some fundamental cultural principles. So where does all this distrust come from and how do we fix that?

Poindexter: Distrust comes from politicians saying one thing and doing something different. We’ve seen it a lot in recent cycles. Luckily for me, I’m old enough to remember politics in the ’80s where Democrat (or) Republican was just the difference in how you thought we should get to the goal of making our country stronger. Now it’s almost like the parties are more worried about power for themselves than they are about doing what’s right for the country. We’ve got to get over that. Our country is more divided now than it’s ever been and it’s going to take all of us coming together to fix it. That’s where I think I differ. My words are going to match my actions. I’m literally somebody who’s going to fight to try to bring people together to solve the issues that are facing us.

Ashland Source: Is there any common ground to be found today between members of different parties? What will it take to return to a time in Congress when political opposites could be friends and even work together?

Poindexter: I think there’s a lot of opportunities. What I hope to achieve in this campaign is showing folks, from whatever political party you align with, that we’re all Americans first. Where I differ and where I think we have opportunities to unite is on the border. I believe in a strong border and I’m gonna stand with Republicans and Democrats, to that effect, to make sure we have a strong border. And supporting the police. I’m a Democrat, but I support the police. I work with Republicans and make sure that our police forces have the resources they need to do their jobs safely and make sure they come home at the end of the day. And I would hope that Republicans would be willing to stand with me to fight for workers, because it’s not just Democratic workers I’m fighting for. I’m fighting for Republican workers, too, independent workers, too, because we’re all feeling the pinch of an economy that’s out of balance. And I’m hoping that they’ll be willing to work with me, as willing as I will be to work with them, to make sure we bring relief.

Ashland Source: What would you want voters in the district to know about you that they may not know today?

Poindexter: I’d like them to know that I’m somebody who’s just like them, somebody who’s worked hard my entire life. You know, I started working at 15 years old in a machine shop, worked in kitchens, worked in factories. I have a Class A CDL, drove truck over the road, had that CDL for 25 years. But the last 19 years, I’ve been a union ironworker. I’m somebody who shows up every day for work, when times are tough, when it’s hot, when it’s raining, when it’s cold. I make sure I get there and do the job I’m tasked to do and make sure I’m able to support my family. Even Republican voters and Democratic voters, they’re all doing the same thing and I believe the United States House of Representatives was designed that somebody representative of the district comes out of the district to represent them in Washington, and I hope people can see that I am somebody who’s more like them than my opponent is.

Ashland Source: Are there any issues where you and your opponents see eye-to-eye? Is there anything you think one or several of them gets right?

Poindexter: My opponent, Max Miller, he voted for the Faster Labor Contracts Act. I would see eye-to-eye with him on that. I mean, he voted against other labor issues, but in that one case, I would, you know, I would be right there. My vote would be exactly the same as his. We don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things because personally, we’re two different people. He was born on third, thinks he hit a triple. He’s never had to work a hard day in his life. He thinks social security was never meant to be a lifeline. I mean, he’s completely out of touch with what people in this district are going through, on what they face. And in that way, we’re not going to see eye-to-eye on very many things.

Ashland Source: What’s one thing that nobody’s asked you about or an issue that needs more light?

Poindexter: I don’t think people are talking enough about the corruption in Washington, right? Members of Congress trading stocks, it shouldn’t happen because they have a responsibility to represent the folks in their district. But as a stockholder, they have a vested interest in the well-being of corporations. Shouldn’t happen. And my opponent’s traded over $1,000,000 worth of stocks since he’s been a member of Congress. We need to ban dark money from politics. It’s allowing large corporations, and even overseas donors, to flood campaigns with unlimited money. My opponent takes dark money. The corruption is something that is not talked about enough and people are starting to connect the dots that their lives are harder because of the corruption. That’s one thing I wish people would talk more about because we definitely got to get the corruption out of Washington.

Ashland Source: What primary or early life events helped shape your views today?

Poindexter: One thing that shaped my politics and shaped my life is being a union member. You know, I wasn’t always a union member. Back in 2007, when I was 27 years old, I joined a union and I saw the difference between not having a union and then having one and it stabilized my life. It made me able to support my family on one income. I have good union benefits and I have a secure retirement, you know, building a pension and an annuity. Seeing that, I want others to be able to experience that, too, from their labor. I’m gonna fight hard in Washington to make sure that working people can get those things, because that’s what we all work for. We don’t go to work just to pay bills and just to barely make ends meet and not have a future. We work so that way we can continue to build ourselves, build our families up and have a secure future and that’s what we got to get back to in this country, back to the basics.

Ashland Source: What do you think the (national) media does wrong when it labels candidates ultra-conservative or ultra-liberal?

Poindexter: They’re always going to try to put labels on candidates and they’re trying to put labels on me. They never put a label on me when I was working a 12-hour shift in the mill coming home greasy or never put a label on me when I worked in a mud hole or up 30 stories high on a building welding and risking my life. But now that I’m speaking up to the things that are important for working families here in my district, now they want to try to put labels on me and they do it because they know that their viewers respond to that. Whether it’s positive or negative, they’re still getting a response. I think our media has gotten more interested in the response they get rather than reporting the truth.

Ashland Source: In this age of misinformation and disinformation, how do you decide which information to trust?

Poindexter: That’s a societal problem that I don’t know if a union ironworker is qualified to fix. But I think what helps me is when a claim is made I try to substantiate it with real facts with, you know, with something in black and white in writing. As a city council member I’ve had to write legislation, read legislation, kind of sift through all the noise to make sure I know what is actually said. And that’s the problem is people, they don’t do the legwork to find the actual facts. At a time where we have unlimited resources at our fingertips, it’s not as difficult as some people think it is, but they just don’t want to take the extra steps to do it in a lot of cases. You know, sometimes people see a story that makes them feel good because it backs up their biases, or one that makes them angry because it goes against their biases, but if they just took a few extra minutes to look up the facts, I think our society would do a lot better with information.

Ashland Source: Anything else to add?

Poindexter: I just would like to highlight again that the cost of living is out of control and that’s not something that is a partisan issue, right? That’s something we all should be working together to solve. I hope the voters in our district see me as somebody who will fight for them and I humbly ask for their vote. To that effect, I want people to feel confident that I will represent them because I’m gonna work my ass off to make sure I do.