The Akron Beacon Journal has told voters in Ohio's 13th Congressional District to send Rep. Emilia Sykes back to Washington — and made clear the real reason is to restrain the president Americans elected.
The endorsement, published by the paper's editorial board, is the latest example of corporate newspapers treating voters as rubes who need guidance from their betters. The board didn't just pick Sykes over Republican Carey Coleman and independent Sandeep Dixit — it framed the entire race around the need to "provide a meaningful check on President Donald Trump and one-party Republican control in Washington."
That's the editorial board's stated priority: not who will fight for the district, but who will fight the White House.
Sykes, first elected in 2022, brings the usual incumbent portfolio. The Beacon Journal highlights her work on affordability, her seat on the Transportation and Infrastructure and Science, Space and Technology committees, and her role in securing roughly $50 million in funding for the Akron-based Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub. She's also angling for a spot on Ways and Means — one of the most powerful committees in the House, with jurisdiction over taxes, Social Security, Medicare and trade.
Her housing legislation would end tax breaks for private equity firms that buy up Ohio housing stock. That's a policy worth debating. But the Beacon Journal doesn't debate it — it simply declares Sykes the "clear choice" and moves on.
As for the alternatives, the board met with all three candidates and dispatched the competition in a sentence each. Coleman, a former radio talk show host who pitched himself as an "independent-minded Republican" with nuanced positions on Trump, data centers and immigration, was deemed sincere but lacking "specificity and depth." Dixit was apparently motivated but also "fell short on explaining how his proposals would work in practice." The board provides no examples of what either man actually proposed, only that it found them insufficient.
The Spokane Spokesman-Review, reporting on Idaho's Senate race the same week, captured something the Beacon Journal won't acknowledge: even in ruby-red states, voters are asking whether their aging incumbents still serve them. An 80-year-old Idaho voter who previously backed Sen. Jim Risch told the paper plainly: "He's 83 years old, and why did they nominate him?" The question applies everywhere.
What the Beacon Journal won't tell you is who owns the paper, what the ownership chain looks like, or what institutional interests ride on who holds Ohio's 13th. Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain, controls the Beacon Journal and dozens like it — a corporate structure that has gutted local newsrooms across the country while preserving editorial boards happy to issue voter instructions. The board that endorsed Sykes operates within that apparatus.
Working Americans in Summit, Stark and Portage counties can read the candidates' records and make up their own minds. They don't need a corporate newspaper — one that explicitly prioritizes checking the president over delivering for the district — to do it for them.
