As Ohio residents hit the polls for Election Day, the Ohio Senate seat candidates are capping off their campaigns with last minute visits.
During the final weekend before the election, incumbent Lou Gentile, D-30th, and Republican challenger Shane Thompson had one goal in common: To stay in contact with the voters.
“We’re going to events, making phone calls, doing door-to-doors, and doing whatever we can in those last few minutes to stay in touch with the voters,” Thompson said.
While Gentile is also focusing on the voters, his primary focus is on the undecided voter demographic.
“We’re working with the districts and letting the undecided voters basically know that I’m the best candidate,” Gentile said. “Athens has been very important to my campaign so far. I’ve got a pretty great ground team on my side.”
Despite maintaining last-minute preparations with voters, Thompson said he and Gentile are running very different campaigns.
“From a candidate’s perspective, I think (Gentile and I) are very different,” he said. “To be honest though, I don’t focus on his campaign, I focus on mine. As a candidate, the worst thing you can do is look at those things.”
In Gentile’s campaign, one of his top priorities is to lower tuition for public universities in Ohio.
“The State of Ohio understands how affordable higher education needs to be for all young people in the state,” Gentile said in a previous Post article. “Ohio University is an important and critical asset for the entire Appalachian region, a wonderful resource for economic growth and research and it’s one the entire region can benefit from.”
In contrast, Thompson has set his sights on technology transfers for start-up companies in Ohio.
“The stature of OU is great, but what I would like to see is more start-up companies for BioTech,” Thompson said. “(OU) could be a place where you can go get an education and start a company yourself. If elected senator, I would work really hard to find out what you need exactly to succeed, may it be bandwidth or infrastructure projects.”
Overall, the most important thing Ohioans can do is vote, Gentile said.
“Just go out and vote; encourage your friends, family, students, acquaintances and neighbors and tell them to go out and vote,” Gentile said.
Gentile will cap off his campaign Tuesday morning with stops at Jefferson Hall on OU’s campus, Baker University Center and Athens City Hall.
az346610@ohiou.edu
