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Alan Darnowsky
Alan Darnowsky (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Ohio's 2nd Congressional District. He lost in the Democratic primary on May 3, 2022.
Darnowsky completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
In 2020, Darnowsky participated in a Candidate Conversation hosted by Ballotpedia and EnCiv. Click here to view the recording.
Biography
Alan Darnowsky was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University in June 1973. His professional career includes working as vice president at Citibank, owning his own software firm for 17 years, and working as an IT professional for Unisys, Barnett Bank, Intrieve, and other companies. Darnowsky has served as a member of the League of Women Voters and local Democratic clubs.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: Ohio's 2nd Congressional District election, 2022
General election
General election for U.S. House Ohio District 2
Incumbent Brad Wenstrup defeated Samantha Meadows in the general election for U.S. House Ohio District 2 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Brad Wenstrup (R) | 74.5 | 192,117 |
 | Samantha Meadows (D)  | 25.5 | 65,745 | |
| Total votes: 257,862 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House Ohio District 2
Samantha Meadows defeated Alan Darnowsky in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Ohio District 2 on May 3, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Samantha Meadows | 72.0 | 11,694 |
 | Alan Darnowsky | 28.0 | 4,541 | |
| Total votes: 16,235 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. House Ohio District 2
Incumbent Brad Wenstrup defeated James Condit Jr. and David Windisch in the Republican primary for U.S. House Ohio District 2 on May 3, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Brad Wenstrup | 77.4 | 56,805 |
 | James Condit Jr. | 12.6 | 9,250 | |
| David Windisch | 10.1 | 7,382 | ||
| Total votes: 73,437 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
2020
See also: Ohio House of Representatives elections, 2020
General election
General election for Ohio House of Representatives District 65
Jean Schmidt defeated Alan Darnowsky and Jim Lewis in the general election for Ohio House of Representatives District 65 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jean Schmidt (R) | 65.4 | 44,435 |
| Alan Darnowsky (D) | 33.9 | 23,019 | |
 | Jim Lewis (Independent) (Write-in) | 0.7 | 506 | |
| Total votes: 67,960 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Watch the Candidate Conversation for this race!
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Ohio House of Representatives District 65
Alan Darnowsky advanced from the Democratic primary for Ohio House of Representatives District 65 on April 28, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Alan Darnowsky | 100.0 | 5,396 |
| Total votes: 5,396 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Watch the Candidate Conversation for this race!
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Ohio House of Representatives District 65
Jean Schmidt defeated Joe Dills and Dillon Blevins in the Republican primary for Ohio House of Representatives District 65 on April 28, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Jean Schmidt | 43.7 | 6,197 |
 | Joe Dills | 41.4 | 5,879 | |
 | Dillon Blevins | 14.9 | 2,113 | |
| Total votes: 14,189 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign finance
Campaign themes
2022
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released Mar 23, 2022 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Alan Darnowsky completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Darnowsky's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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- The incumbent has been in office for almost 10 years now and he simply hasn't represented our interests. The Second District is not a wealthy district. It contains some of the poorest counties in Ohio. The incumbent voted against the Infrastructure Bill which will make much needed investments in Southern Ohio. He voted against renewing the Child Tax Credit which benefits many people in our district. He voted for the 2017 tax "cut which benefited very few people in our district. He has done very little to clean up the environmental mess at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
- The chaos in Columbus and other state capitals shows how much we need a National Voting Rights Act. Despite a very fair election with high turnout in the middle of a pandemic, Republicans are pushing voter suppression laws and trying to move control of elections from bi-partisan Boards of Elections to partisan State Legislatures. We need to get rid of the dark money in campaigns. We need to eliminate gerrymandering.
- The ratio of CEO to average worker pay has increased from 65:1 in 1989 to 350:1 i 2020. We need to make the playing field more level by increasing the wages of the average worker and reducing their costs where possible.
Economic inequality
Transitioning to renewable energy
Reviving American industry
Expanding affordable healthcare
Understanding that we live in a community is also important. We should allow for individual rights as long as they don't unduly interfere with the rights of others. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. is reputed to have said "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins." Being offended is not justification to curtail a right.
Being pragmatic is also a good characteristic for an elected official to have. The ideologues may get all the cheers, but the pragmatists are the people who get things done.
I'm inquisitive. I read a wide variety of material and talk to a wide variety of people always looking for a better solution to a problem. I can add what I have just learned to what I already know and make connections.
I know how to listen to people to hear not only what they say they want, but by asking questions to find out what they really need. I know I don't have all the answers so I respect other people's ideas.
I'm a good negotiator. I don't always have to get everything I want as long as I get most of what I need.
I have a good sense of humor. A joke, even a bad joke, can defuse a tense situation and lead to a better working relationship.
I can get along with people even though I don't agree on policy matters with them.
I have integrity. Neither my vote nor my views will ever be for sale.
I liked the job because the company gave you as much responsibility as you were willing to accept. Since we worked directly for the salespeople, I learnt how to deal with customers as well as technical skills. I learned how to really listen to not only what the customers said they wanted, but by asking questions to find out what they really needed. I also learned how to satisfy customers.
Robert Moses started out as an idealistic public servant who had a vision of a great parks system on Long Island to serve the residents of Long Island and New York City. He was thwarted in his early attempts because he didn't have enough power to push his projects through.
Moses acquired power through his close working relationship with Governor Al Smith of New York. Smith's backing gave Moses the political juice to enable Moses to bring his ideas to fruition. Over the years Moses' power grew because he became indispensable to various politicians. As often happens, power also begot more power which then became embedded in the laws of New York .
Moses almost always had more power than the people he was ostensibly working for. He would use power to get his own way. Finally Moses ran up against the new Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, one of the wealthiest men in the US, who had his own base of power outside of government. When Moses tried his usual ploy of resigning, Rockefeller accepted the resignation.
As his power grew, Moses became more arrogant and wouldn't listen to anybody. He decided the exact routes and details of roads. When he was asked to make the strip of land he was acquiring for a road a little bit wider so that mass transit could be added at a later date, he refused because he didn't like mass transit. The bridges on his parkways are very low so that buses couldn't fit under them. He didn't want buses on his parkways because they led to his parks and Moses didn't want the kinds of people who rode on buses, especially people of color, in his parks New York is still living with Moses' decisions 60 years later. The ironic thing is he never learned to drive.
As a nation we have to get serious about climate change if we want to leave a livable planet for our children and grandchildren. Transitioning to renewable energy will also benefit us economically and with respect to national security. Jobs in developing and maintaining the power sources of the future can't be offshored. Because Ohio has the manufacturing know how and trained work force to be able to make the components for green energy, this transition should help us revive our manufacturing sector. Reducing the world's dependence on fossil fuels will reduce the ability of oil-rich rogue nations to hold us hostage.
Economic inequality has been increasing. That isn't healthy for our economy or for our democracy. People on the bottom of the economic ladder have to make tough choices about which necessities they can afford. People on the top have been using their increased share of the country's income and wealth as a scorekeeping measure. This situation is unstable and is getting increasingly more so.
Becky's brother had been a union carpenter. He had gotten injured on the job. The union's insurance company sent him to a doctor associated with a pill mill. The brother became addicted to opioids. When the opioids stopped working and got too expensive, the brother turned to heroin to which he also became addicted.
Becky and her mother tried to find a local detox facility for her brother. None would take his union insurance. Twice they sent the brother to out of state facilities. Neither one helped. Becky's brother died of a heroin overdose at the age of 25, leaving behind a child.
Becky and her mother have turned their grief and anger into activism. Becky has joined the Mental Health Board in one of the 16 counties in the Second District. She and her mother have established a foundation in the brother's name. It helps families of addicts deal with the crisis of addiction. The foundation has also established a college scholarship in the brother's name for students at his old high school.
Becky's story drives home several points:
1. Addiction can happen to anyone. Becky's brother was an athlete in high school and had a good paying job.4. Addicts should be treated as patients, not as criminals.
2. We have shut down many pill mills and the Sackler family was forced to pay a huge civil penalty. We still have more to do.
3. We need more affordable, local facilities to treat addicts. We have to treat an addict in their own environment to reduce the chance of relapse.
Very often perfect becomes the enemy of the good. Ideological purity can get in the way of delivering benefits for the voters. An example of that is the Infrastructure Bill. To be even more effective the bill should have been much closer to the original proposed size. However, at least now we can start to work on desperately needed improvements to our roads and bridges, electric grid, water and sewer systems, and and making internet faster and more reliable in many areas of the Second District,.
Compromise isn't always easy, especially in the highly partisan atmosphere we have in our country now. It will take pragmatists on both sides of issues, who are willing to listen to each other and try to find common ground. These people who are willing to compromise will be called names by the extremists in both parties. In the end, they will be responsible for whatever progress is made.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
2020
Candidate Conversations
General election
Moderated by journalist and political commentator Greta Van Susteren, Candidate Conversations is a virtual debate format that allows voters to easily get to know their candidates through a short video Q&A.
Click below to watch the conversation for this race.
Primary election
Candidate Conversations is a virtual debate format that allows voters to easily get to know their candidates through a short video Q&A.
Click below to watch the conversation for this race.
Alan Darnowsky completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Darnowsky's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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- By inclination, training, and experience I am a pragmatic problem solver. We need more people like that in the Legislature.
- I believe very strongly in a sense of community. We all have to work together to ensure that everybody has a chance to succeed.
- I depend on small money donations and will represent all of the people of the 65th House District.
Addiction - The pending opioids settlement gives Ohio a rare opportunity to establish community-based treatment centers that treat the underlying causes of addictive behavior and not just the symptoms. That money must not vanish into the general fund.
2, I have a lot of patience. I also know how to defuse a tense situation with humor.
3. I'm pragmatic and analytic, which helps in problem solving.
4. I'm honest. I will respectfully say what I believe, even if it isn't what you want to hear.
1. Listen to all your constituents, not just the ones who voted for you.
2. Try to solve the state's problems instead of pushing an agenda that appeals to the extremists in your party.
My favorite work of fiction is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I first read it as a teenager and it has stuck with me ever since. It points out how parts of life can be absurd. It is also extremely funny.
The economy of the future requires a well-educated work force. Ohio's school funding formula with its heavy reliance on local property taxes was declared unconstitutional in 1997. There are children who were in school then who have children of their own in school now! It will take political courage to tell voters that Ohio needs to look at raising income taxes to make school funding more equitable.
I would approach my work in the legislature as a pragmatist, not as an ideologue. That doesn't mean that I don't have strong beliefs. What it does mean that I would try to find areas of agreement with other legislators so that we could find workable solutions to the problems that face Ohio.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 10, 2020
