In November, Ohio is hiring a new lawyer.
Just below the marquee Senate and governor races on the ballot, two men – both lawyers and public servants of different stripes – are vying to become Ohio’s next attorney general. They’ll be the first new elected official in the office since Dave Yost, a Republican who resigned in May before the end of his term, won the seat eight years ago.
The Republican is Keith Faber, the current state auditor and a fixture in Ohio GOP politics over the 21st century, including a stint as Senate President. The Democrat is John Kulewicz, a city councilor in Central Ohio who recently retired from a 44-year career at the law firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease.
The office is powerful but its races run at a lower profile than gubernatorial or U.S. Senate contests. The attorney general oversees Ohio’s state crime lab and the police academy; defends state laws against legal challenges; acts as a gatekeeper for citizens seeking to change laws or the constitution; acts as the people’s lawyer when suing big companies or the federal government; and is sometimes heard at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Faber, son of a nurse and a highway patrolman, said the next attorney general must have the trust and support of law enforcement – to which he emphasized his endorsements from most Ohio counties’ sheriffs and police unions.
The attorney general also enforces Ohio’s consumer protection laws. And Faber said if he wins, he’d build out a unit within the office that acts as a more aggressive intervenor on behalf of Ohioans if their health insurer denies a legitimate claim.
“If health insurers are trying to pad their profits and have record profits by the expense of consumers, that’s not good business. That’s not good for Ohio,” he said. “The other side of this equation is it also weakens the consumer confidence in the whole health care system. If you thought you had insurance only to find out that the insurance company is playing games with you, your confidence in the health care system is going to go down.”
Kulewicz traces his history back to the steel mills around eastern Ohio, where his grandfather would wear special shoes to protect his feet to kick waste out of a furnace. As an attorney, he represented everyone from the City of Akron to Chesapeake Energy, a since-renamed gas producer.
In 2022, that included arguing at the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Marietta Memorial Hospital’s self-funded insurance plan. The hospital won, allowing it to pay DaVita, a dialysis provider for end stage renal patients, a stingier reimbursement for care.
Kulewicz proposed an attorney general’s office refocused around protecting consumers from scams and corporate abuses, and one intervening more forcefully in regulatory cases that set electric rates.
“Anything that deals with the necessities of our lives, I think deserves special scrutiny,” he said.
“I’m not saying they’re engaging in anti-competitive conduct, but the things that are necessities in our lives. Everything from groceries to fuel, you name it, to things like that. I want to make sure that the laws of supply and demand are operating there and not anti-competitive conduct.”
Interview highlights
Signal Statewide interviewed both candidates for 45 minutes with a similar set of questions.
You can read those interviews in the links below:
Candidate Keith Faber said Ohio’s current abortion laws are ‘probably’ unconstitutional
Candidate John Kulewicz wants to get away from ‘spicy’ culture wars
A few highlights from our conversations:
- Kulewicz thinks Dave Yost made the office overtly partisan in a chase for headlines.
- Faber said he’s a more experienced prosecutor and auditor, which matters more than Kulewicz’ appearances before the state and U.S. supreme courts.
- Kulewicz said unequivocally the state prosecution of FirstEnergy executives would continue under his watch. Faber called the case “warranted” but said he couldn’t answer definitively without being briefed on all the evidence.
- Both candidates agreed on three hot button issues. While nuances vary, they both think Ohio needs new rules and warrants around Flock cameras; that the death penalty is an appropriate form of legal punishment; and that the federal courts were right to tell off Attorney General Dave Yost for abusing Ohioans’ First Amendment rights.
On abortion, candidates show a subtle split
Among other jobs, the attorney general represents the state when its laws are challenged. In 2023, Ohio voters amended Ohio’s constitution by referendum and enshrined a guaranteed right of abortion access for women in the first two trimesters.
Republican lawmakers in Ohio – including Faber – have spent decades passing anti-abortion legislation. Many of those laws are facing fresh legal challenges in light of the new constitutional rules.
Faber, who identifies as pro-life, conceded that Ohio’s 6-week abortion ban – passed by Republicans in 2019 and now frozen by judges as a challenge makes its way to the Ohio Supreme Court – “probably” violates the constitution.
However, he was more equivocal about a current law that requires women to undergo a 24-hour waiting period before receiving an abortion.
“That’s a little closer call,” he said. “I’d have to look at the totality of the circumstances.“
Kulewicz declined to say whether the laws violate the constitution, given he might need to defend them in January. But he noted that Ohio voted “overwhelmingly” to pass the referendum that enshrined abortion access in the constitution. He has also been endorsed by Planned Parenthood, a major abortion provider and influential figure in the politics of reproductive rights.
Endorsements
For the two candidates, there’s a clear endorsement split. Most law enforcement agencies and trade groups have backed Faber. While most unions, especially public sector ones, backed Kulewicz.
By Faber’s count, 82% of Ohio sheriffs have endorsed him. Other notable endorsements on his website include the Affiliated Construction Trades union, the Buckeye Firearms Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Union of Operating Engineers, the state Chamber of Commerce, and the Ohio Right to Life PAC.
Kulewicz backers include a broader spread of unions, including the AFL-CIO, communication workers, teachers, civil service employees, mine workers, nurses, food and grocery workers, and some local branches of Building and Construction Trade councils.
Money
Perhaps the most interesting campaign finance story of the race is the Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease PAC, funded by firm employees including many of Kulewicz’ ex-colleagues, wrote $16,600 checks (the legal maximum) for both candidates this cycle.
Faber, a favored incumbent with decades of relationships in politics, has far more campaign funds to spend in the campaign’s final month.
He has raised nearly $2.7 million in 2025 and 2026, campaign finance records show. His campaign has more than $3.7 million on hand as of Monday.
Some of his bigger donors include the unions that endorsed him; auto dealers; Greif packaging heiress Ginni Ragan; members of the Wyler family of Wyler Auto; Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Susan “Dee” Haslam have given $30,000 collectively.
Notably, Les Wexner, a longtime Ohio Republican political donor who has since faced public criticism over his personal and financial relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, gave $15,000 to Faber’s campaign last year, which Faber later promised to give to charity.
Kulewicz has raised a more modest $1.7 million so far this cycle. His campaign still has $1.2 million on hand to spend in the last month, according to campaign finance reports filed Monday.
His large donors include Robert Korandovic, an energy consultant, Barbara Karplus and Rod Womer, of the California-based environmental focused Woka Foundation, and others.