Ohio Democrats Prepare to Caucus on Presidential Candidates

Ideastream Public Media | By M.L. Schultze

Published January 4, 2016 at 4:56 PM EST

Ohio Democrats are hoping for thousands of people to show up in all 16 of the state’s congressional districts tomorrow night. As WKSU’s M.L. Schultze report, they’ll be picking delegates to the Democratic presidential convention this summer.

In all, more than 500 people are running for what comes down to a trip to Philadelphia in July – and a chance to declare whether they want Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton to be president.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper says those candidates include some new faces.

“There’s a lot of people coming to represent Bernie Sanders, for example, who we haven’t seen before. And we think that’s great. Our attitude is to use this as an opportunity to really build our grass roots infrastructure going into what will be a very spirited election focused on Ohio.”

In all, 93 delegate-candidates will be selected along with nine alternates. For Republicans, Ohio is a winner-take-all state. But the Democratic delegates selected will be divided between Clinton and Sanders – based on the proportion of the votes each gets on March 15. At the convention, they’ll be joined by party leaders, big city mayors and Ohio’s Democratic members of Congress.

Here are the locations for the 16 congressional district meetings: Candidates run as pledged supporters of either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. For more information: https://ohiodems.org/2016-delegate-selection-plan/ Doors open at 6 p.m., caucuses start at 7 p.m. 1st Congressional District Winton Woods Intermediate School 825 Waycross Rd. Forest Park 2nd Congressional District Southern Hills Career Technical Center 9193 Hamer Rd. Georgetown 3rd Congressional District Columbus State Community College Delaware Hall 550 E. Spring St. Columbus 4th Congressional District Knights of Columbus 1232 E. Center St. Marion 5th Congressional District Bowling Green State University Olscamp Hall 123 E. Ridge St. Bowling Green 6th Congressional District Ohio University Eastern Campus 45425 National Rd. St. Clairsville 7th Congressional District R.G. Drage Career Center 2800 Richville Dr. SE Massillon 8th Congressional District International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 648 4300 Millikin Rd. Hamilton 9th Congressional District Sandusky High School 2130 Hayes Ave. Sandusky 10th Congressional District Sinclair Community College Building 12 444 W. Third St. Dayton 11th Congressional District Cuyahoga Community College Metropolitan Campus 2900 Community College Ave. Cleveland 12th Congressional District Delaware Area Career Center North Campus 1610 State Route 521 Delaware 13th Congressional District Theodore Roosevelt High School 1400 N. Mantua St. Kent 14th Congressional District Lakeland Community College Building A, Breakers Dining Hall 7700 Clocktower Dr. Kirtland 15th Congressional District Berne Union High School 506 N. Main St. Sugar Grove 16th Congressional District Medina Performing Arts Center Main Stage 851 Weymouth Rd. Medina