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The controversy around Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) is complicating the midterm landscape for Ohio Republicans as Democrats build momentum in the Buckeye State, a former battleground that’s become a red state in the Trump era.
Miller, who is running for a third term in a competitive House district, is facing calls to step down after allegations of domestic abuse toward his ex-wife, the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio). He has forcefully denied the claims, but the controversy could make his red seat an easier pick-up opportunity for Democrats in the high-stakes fight for House control.
Ohio is also host to a highly competitive Senate race, where former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) has lodged a comeback bid against incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R) that could bolster Democrats’ chances of taking back the upper chamber this fall — plus a neck-and-neck race for Ohio governor in the state that’s been GOP-led for more than a decade.
“In an environment where Republicans have been particularly strong in Ohio, this year’s environment is going to be much more challenging for them, and this certainly doesn’t help things,” said Robert Alexander, a political science professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, on the Miller developments.
“I think that the fact that so much of the attention is on Republicans is a good thing for Democrats,” he added. “The more it’s about Republicans, I think the better that Democrats will likely do.”
Miller has denied allegations from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, in a New York Times report last week that the Ohio lawmaker scalded her chest with hot water, held a gun to her head and fractured their daughter’s collarbone, among other allegations. The pair divorced in 2025 and have since been locked in a bitter custody battle over their daughter.
The House Ethics Committee announced Monday that it’s investigating allegations of domestic violence and abuse or illegal drug use after Miller said he has “nothing to hide.”
Miller also said that he received a Monday phone call from President Trump, who told him that it would be a tough race and that he didn’t know whether the embattled lawmaker would be able to pull it off in the fall. The House Republican said he drew comparisons to the president’s own controversies on the 2016 campaign trail, signaling his intent to stay in the race.
But a new co/efficient polling memo released this week showed Miller down 14 percentage points against Brook Park City Council member Brian Poindexter, the Democrat nominee for the typically red 7th Congressional District.
“The district is Republican, but it’s not so heavily Republican that a Democrat could never win,” said Justin Buchler, an associate professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Now, a chorus of Capitol Hill Republicans are calling for Miller to resign ahead of an Aug. 10 deadline that would let the state GOP pick a replacement nominee for the November ballot.
Bernie Moreno, the senator and Miller’s former father-in-law, said the congressman needs “serious psychological help.” Husted, in the middle of his must-win Senate fight, said Miller needs to “step aside as a candidate” and resign.
Democrats are also signaling that the Miller controversy could become a liability for the GOP in other House races.
“Every single vulnerable Republican who has coddled and stood by these creeps should be ashamed of themselves,” Democrats’ House campaign arm spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement.
Mehek Cooke, an Ohio Republican strategist, told The Hill that Miller has become “an unnecessary distraction” as Republicans head into a highly competitive midterm year. She shrugged off the latest polling, but called for Miller to step aside.
“Republicans should take this race seriously [and] put forward candidates who reflect our values and keep the focus on delivering results,” Cooke wrote in an email.
Buchler drew parallels to the controversy that built around Democrat Graham Platner’s Senate bid in Maine until the progressive bowed to calls from party leaders to withdraw.
“There came a point at which it was just too much,” Buchler said of the pressure on Platner.
If Miller does stay in the race, “then you have a candidate who is, in some ways, damaged by the allegations, and in some ways damaged by political leaders in the state coming out against him,” Buchler said. “If he does step down, then you have the question of who fills the vacancy.”
In response to an inquiry about the Miller saga, House Republicans campaign arm’s spokesperson Zach Bannon projected confidence without directly namedropping the embattled lawmaker.
“Ohio’s 7th congressional district is a Republican seat that strongly backed President Trump and consistently rejects the radical left’s agenda. It will remain red this November,” Bannon said.
As the Miller saga unfolds, the stage is set for highly competitive races for the Senate and governor’s mansion that could mean Democrats gain ground in the red state. Once considered a purple national bellwether, Ohio has grown increasingly red since siding with Trump in each of his three presidential elections — but experts say that could change.
“Ohio leans Republican, but it is not a solidly Republican Deep South state,” Buchler said. “This is a midterm, which means that elections nationwide are going to move towards the party out of the White House, that’s the Democrats. That could, in principle, mean that Democrats pick up some wins in states like Ohio.”
Brown, a major recruit for Democrats, has pulled slightly ahead of Husted in Decision Desk HQ’s (DDHQ) polling average of the Senate race, which prognosticators consider among just a handful of toss-up contests that could determine the upper chamber’s majority.
Term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine (R) last year appointed Husted, then the lieutenant governor, to temporarily fill Vice President Vance’s old seat in the Senate. The Senate contest is a special election to fill out the remainder of Vance’s term, which runs through 2028.
In the governor’s race, DeWine has endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and former co-leader at Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to succeed him. But Ramaswamy lacks elected experience and, as a first-generation American, faces headwinds from some anti-immigrant voters in the GOP.
He faces a tough rival this fall in Democrat Amy Acton, a former Ohio health director who worked with DeWine during the pandemic. Cook Political Report last month shifted the governor’s race toward Democrats, into the toss-up column.
“It is a coin flip for both the governor’s race and the Senate race. I wouldn’t be surprised if both of those races were within the margin of error, ultimately,” Alexander said.
At the same time, Ohio is also home to a handful of competitive House races that could give Republicans new pickup opportunities under newly redrawn, GOP-friendly maps.
Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Greg Landsman are both running in reshaped districts, Cook rates as “toss up” and “lean Democrat” contests, respectively.
Ohio GOP consultant Matt Dole attributed the Rust Belt state’s highly competitive environment in part to Trump fatigue — as the president weathers lackluster approval ratings, and frustration over his handling of the economy and the war in Iran — and to a “general fatigue” with Republicans in a state where the party has dominated every statewide partisan office since 2010.
Republicans are still feeling bullish about their midterm chances this cycle, Dole said, “but it is certainly the most competitive we’ve seen in the last 20 years.”
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