Tonight, a record number of Presidential candidates will arrive in Westerville, Ohio for the 4th debate of the Presidential primary season. Ohioans appreciate the opportunity to capture the attention of the presidential candidates, not just because Ohio remains a central battleground state for the presidency, but because we have questions that require answers. These questions provide the foundation of my service, and I'm grateful for your support. Come 2020 I'm looking for someone that can lead on these issues from the Oval Office.

We hope the candidates will address the thousands of working families across Ohio who struggle to make ends meet – from wages and pensions, to healthcare and public education, to the opioid scourge, to the increasing effects on communities of climate change. But, it will be up to the moderators to ask the right questions. Will they? We cannot have what happened in Detroit — where moderators failed to ask a single question about jobs, manufacturing, or trade — happen in Ohio. It is disappointing that the rules of the debate sidelined Rep. Tim Ryan, the only Presidential candidate who knows first hand the struggle of Ohio’s working communities.

There must be questions about places in southern Ohio, like Portsmouth, where the opioid crisis has ravaged so many families. Addiction’s wounds remain deep and destabilizing.

To the East lies Ohio’s Appalachian coal corridor. As other sectors of energy displace coal, how will the people living there find work to survive? Will any future infrastructure bill bring hope to coal country? Meanwhile, will the candidates support the Butch Lewis Act in Congress to assure over 60,000 Ohio miners, truck drivers, and building trades’ retirees receive their hard-earned pensions?

To the West, Dayton is still recovering from the tragic mass shooting tragedy in August. Will the moderators give candidates the opportunity to speak to the bereaving families about gun violence and mass shootings in America?

To the North, we witness shuttered auto plants like Lordstown, thousands of GM workers on strike in Parma and Toledo, and mothballed steel mills in Lorain and Warren. What will the moderators ask the candidates about global trade with penny wage economies, the outsourcing of Ohio’s living wage jobs, the damaging Trump China tariffs, and President Trump’s proposed USMCA, which is nothing more than NAFTA 2.0? Ohio became one of the biggest job losers as a result of NAFTA. Donald Trump’s embrace of these dispossessed workers was one of the reasons he carried Ohio. But in almost every Ohio county, farmers and businesses are hedging their bets because of President Trump’s destructive trade policies. Small businesses can’t get parts for equipment and farmers must rely on government reimbursements for lost sales abroad.

Along Lake Erie you will see climate change first hand. Toxic algae blooms, historic rainfall, and a 124 year high in Great Lakes water levels is creating a new set of infrastructure and environmental challenges for our coastal and agricultural communities. Keeping out the dreaded Asian big head carp, which threatens the entire Great Lakes ecosystem adds to massive challenges that require aggressive federal involvement.

President Trump and Ohio’s Republican delegation work together to undermine the working people of Ohio – from the farm to the factory floor. Tuesday’s debate provides a rare and precious opportunity to ask the Democratic candidates how they would return dignity to the office of the President and turn the direction of our state and country around for working people. I'll be in Congress working hard to bring the values we hold dear to Washington, D.C., and your support makes it possible. The people of Ohio require nothing less.

Thank you,

Marcy Kaptur