His father helped save people from choking – now he is trying to save the GOP from Trump

While many Republican political candidates are trying to out-Trump each other, Ohio's Phil Heimlich is taking the opposite approach. The 69-year-old conservative has jumped into the GOP primary for Ohio's 8th Congressional District in the western part of the state with an appeal to Democrats and fellow Republicans to reject Donald Trump's big lie and his party's voter suppression efforts.

Heimlich - yes, his father invented the life-saving technique for clearing a choking victim's airway - previously served as an assistant prosecutor in Hamilton County (where Cincinnati is located) and a member of the the city council. He explained to The Bulwark why he is coming out of semi-retirement to swim upstream against the Trump GOP tide.

“I have a nice life here, but I feel compelled because our democracy is under attack with voter suppression. That’s going on, putting hacks in place of people like the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other people like that. We all know what’s happening," Heimlich said. He says he’s determined to reclaim the Republican party.

His primary opponent is incumbent Warren Davidson. Davidson is very much on the Trump side of the party, having voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection. Davidson also is virulent in his COVID-19 extremism. “There are, as far as I can tell," said Heimlich, "only two members of the House who have sent out comparisons between Nazi practices and COVID measures. One is Marjorie Taylor Greene. The other is the person I’m running against: Warren Davidson.”

Davidson apologized for but did not delete his Nazi-COVID tweet.

Heimlich says, “I’m willing to follow Liz Cheney and Anthony Gonzalez, people like that who have stood up for what’s right. And who have stood up for our democracy.” He says that there “is a clear distinction so people can choose: Do they want Liz Cheney or do they want Marjorie Taylor Greene?”