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New anti-Jim Jordan PAC to recruit ‘viable’ candidates to run against him

The Jordan Watch PAC was launched Monday by three-time Democratic challenger to Jordan, Janet Garrett

A new PAC launched Monday whose sole aim is to unseat Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
A new PAC launched Monday whose sole aim is to unseat Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)

Rep. Jim Jordan’s three-time Democratic opponent is not running against him again in 2020 — but she is launching a PAC committed solely to kicking him out of office.

Janet Garrett, a Democrat from Ohio’s 4th District has been lost to Jordan by nearly 70 percent in each of their general election matchups. Garrett is forming the Jordan Watch PAC to “expose Jim’s radical ideology to the people he is supposed to represent,” she announced Monday.

“I will not be running against Jim again. Instead, I’ve been focused on building out the Jordan Watch so that we can transform our remarkable grassroots fundraising into an organization that can help recruit Jim Jordan’s next opponent,” Garrett said.

Jordan, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, hails from one of the most solidly Republican districts in the country.

But his election calculus could change by 2020 if a lawsuit challenging Ohio’s statehouse-drawn boundaries is successful.

Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race for Ohio’s 4th District Solid Republican.

The new anti-Jordan PAC’s executive director, Garrett alumnus Zach Stepp, suggested the PAC will recruit candidates from both parties to jump into the 2020 race for the chance to challenge Jordan in both the Republican primary and general election.

The PAC will recruit “viable” and “qualified” candidates from “both sides of the aisle” so that Jordan “does not go unchallenged,” Stepp said in a statement.

As the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, Jordan has been tasked with defending President Donald Trump and his administration from sweeping investigations into the president’s potential conflicts of interest.

Those include conflicts over his businesses and who in the White House got security clearances, and illegal hush money payments to a former mistress — pornographic actress Stormy Daniels — during the 2016 campaign.

Jordan has sought to undermine the credibility of those House investigations, labeling them a “fishing expedition” to find anything in Trump’s past that would undermine him as president.

Democratic leaders and members of the committees that launched investigations into Trump and his administration have argued that at least five of the president’s former campaign and business associates have admitted to crimes and, in some cases, implicated him in those crimes. But, leaders argue, the House GOP did nothing to investigate those claims when it held the majority in 2017 and 2018.

Trump carried Ohio’s 4th District in 2016 by more than 30 points.

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