Up until a couple of months ago, very few Ohioans outside his district knew who Rep. Max Miller was.
They may recall he is the guy who took former Rep. Anthony Gonzalez’s redrawn district seat after the former Ohio State University wide receiver did not seek reelection.
But Miller was no Jim Jordan, a household name in Ohio politics, until this summer.
That is when details of his bitter divorce from Emily Moreno and their resulting custody battle came to light. Adding to the drama is that Moreno is the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno.
Objectively, this is an ugly breakup.
Emily Moreno, in court filings, accuses Miller of physically abusing her and their 2-year-old daughter.
Miller denies the allegations and says his ex-wife has mental health issues.
The accusations have been percolating under the surface for weeks. A couple of weeks ago, a PAC supporting Miller’s opponent reportedly placed thousands of robocalls to voters in his district highlighting the allegations.
Then came word that internal polling showed Miller’s Democratic opponent, Brian Poindexter, was close in the reliably red district.
Then Sunday morning, Miller took to X and held a 15-minute livestream to refute the allegations.
That prompted his former father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno, to post a statement calling on Miller to drop his reelection bid and calling him a danger to his daughter, something he repeated Tuesday as captured by TMZ.
Miller could drop out of the race in time for the Republican Party to put a replacement candidate on the ballot, but he has to do it by Monday. Miller says he has no intention of doing that and plans to fight.
To help unpack this story, we are joined by Abby Vesoulis, national politics reporter for Mother Jones.
Snollygoster of the week
Last week, Democrat Amy Acton said that as governor she would impose a conditional moratorium on data centers. They could be built provided they meet a list of requirements, including paying for their own power and using union labor. But it was not a ban or a firm halt to data centers.
That opened the door for Libertarian candidate for governor Don Kissick. This week, he called for an immediate moratorium on every new data center project in Ohio, with no new data center construction until the state comes up with new rules for the computer warehouses.
Before this week’s statement, Kissick was tough on data centers, but did not call for a temporary ban. His statement does not indicate why he changed his stance, only mentioning that this goes beyond Amy Acton’s conditional moratorium.
Whatever the reasons, he got headlines and attention. Pretty shrewd. For that, Libertarian candidate for governor Don Kissick gets our Snollygoster of the Week.