New chair ready to lead county Dems through time of change
DOVER (WJER) (Feb. 26, 2024) – The new Tuscarawas County Democratic Party chair is up for the challenge of bringing more candidates and voters into the party.
The executive committee selected Mike DiDonato of Dover to take over last week following the resignation of Gail Garbrandt.
“There’s a lot of folks out there that think that the Democratic party locally has almost ceased to exist, and that is not the case. We have a core group of folks that are ready and willing to restart the engine here, if you will,” said DiDonato.
DiDonato says he’s been mentoring under Garbrandt the past year or so to eventually replace her, he just didn’t expect her to step down with about a year left on her term.
“It happened a lot quicker than I thought,” he said. “(I) just threw my name in the hat to see what happened and was elected.”
DiDonato says he wants to reenergize the party’s base and reach out to people in every precinct of the county.
“I think locally we’ve kind of focused on Dover and New Philadelphia a lot, and we want to expand our outreach. We’ve got a lot of work to do, there’s no doubt about it,” DiDonato said.
DiDonato takes over as Democrats will have a new member on the four-person Tuscarawas County Board of Elections.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office is preventing Democrat Jeremiah Johnson from serving another term on the board due to his conviction last year on 10 misdemeanor counts for failing to pay business taxes – which resulted in a $200 fine.
County Democrats have selected Kathy Johnson of New Philadelphia to take Johnson’s place on the elections board.
“We were surprised by the decision by Frank LaRose, but we did make a determination to stand by that,” DiDonato said. “It’s unfortunate what happened with Jeremiah. He’s been a loyal party member over the years and we’re sad that this happened.”
But DiDonato says Democrats are happy to get Bachman involved.
“We are excited about Kathy to fill that position and her qualifications are outstanding.”
DiDonato says Bachman’s nomination would still need final approval from LaRose’s office.