QAnon promoter who turned his lawn into a giant Trump sign wins Ohio primary

An Ohio man who turned his back yard into a tribute to former President Donald Trump has won a Republican congressional primary race.

J.R. Majewski, a Port Clinton Republican, will challenge Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a 40-year veteran lawmaker, in a congressional district redrawn by GOP legislators to lean slightly to the right after years of being staunchly Democratic, reported the Toledo Blade.

“What I have learned over the past year is that Ohioans are ready to start putting America First,” Majewski said in a statement. “Our grassroots movement across northwest Ohio intensified with every terrible mistake the Biden administration continued and still continues to make. I am more energized than ever to unite the Republican base.”

The 42-year-old Majewski, who defeated state Sen. Theresa Gavarone (R-Huron) and state Rep. Craig Riedel (R-Defiance), painted his lawn twice in 2020 to look like a huge Trump campaign sign and took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, "Stop the Steal" rally but says he did not go to the U.S. Capitol afterward, although he stops short now of saying the election was stolen.

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Majewski wore a QAnon T-shirt during a Fox News interview and has used hashtags associated with the conspiracy theory, but he has later said he did not fully understand the right-wing movement and claims he has donated the shirt to the Salvation Army.

Kaptur's district had long been reliably Democratic, and the Ohio General Assembly had fused together Democratic strongholds in Toledo with the west side of Cleveland to form the so-called "Snake on the Lake," but the GOP legislature redrew her district to include more conservative counties to tip the district to the right.

Ms. Kaptur’s district until now had been staunchly Democratic. Following the 2010 census, the Ohio General Assembly redrew it to become even more so, connecting the bluest parts of metro Toledo with the west side of Cleveland as the so-called Snake on the Lake. In so doing, that district map combined the Democratic Party cores of Ms. Kaptur’s district with that of former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whom she then defeated in a primary in 2012.

Ms. Kaptur, now the longest-serving woman in Congress, faced no primary rival this time around, but she now is running for a district deemed by the political journal Politico to lean slightly to the right. More geographically compact than the Snake, it includes all of Williams, Fulton, Defiance, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Erie counties along with Lucas and northern Wood County.

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The possibility of unseating the currently longest-serving woman in Congress drew more than $1 million in outside spending to the GOP primary race.