Democratic candidate Jeff Clapper and Libertarian candidate Mike Fricke are vying to unseat incumbent state House Rep. Heidi Workman at the polls on Nov. 3.
Workman won the Republican primary against Gail Pavliga for the 72nd district seat in 2024; later that year, she won the general election. Now she’s campaigning to keep her seat at the statehouse.
With Geis Development and Bitdeer looking to open a data center in Shalersville, AI data center regulations are at the top of the list of issues for this year’s election. All three candidates believe data centers in Portage County should be regulated. Read on for a look at the other topics each candidate is bringing to their campaign.
Rep. Heidi Workman
As a small business owner with a background as a nurse, Workman advocates for reducing regulations and easing burdens on small business owners and is a defender for accessibility and affordability in healthcare.
Lowering property taxes is another one of her top priorities. She, along with other state representatives, last year helped pass four bills that she said will bring over $2.4 billion of tax relief over the next three years.
“I think we need to see some major reform on this issue,” Workman said. “No one should be forced out of their home because they can’t pay property taxes, or find themselves paying more in taxes than their own mortgage. It’s unacceptable; that’s why I say the fight continues. It continues to be my top priority in the legislature.”
Workman said a major issue at the forefront of the election is the impact that data centers have in Portage County and whether a proposed AI data center should be located in Shalersville. Bitdeer and Geis have proposed to build a 15-building campus for an AI and computing data center in Shalersville, but not without substantial backlash from a large percentage of the Portage County community.
“My stance is that I believe the local community should have a say in this decision-making process of whether or not a data center can or cannot come into their community,” Workman said. “Let the people vote. I don’t think the data centers should be forced on people; I think that’s the issue here. I polled my district and 91% of those responses did not want this data center in Shalersville, so I brought those statistics to the statehouse and I told big tech that this community does not want a data center and it shouldn’t be forced upon them.”
Both Clapper and Fricke noted that Workman took an approximately $6,588 campaign donation from Conrad Geis, owner of Geis Development. Workman said she didn’t personally accept the donation; her campaign committee did. Because the donation was made by Conrad Geis and not a corporation, the law states that it is illegal to return it to the donor. She said she “donated it because I couldn't give it back to them.” The donation was to Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities.
Workman is the vice chair of the Technology and Innovation Committee and serves on the Natural Resources Committee, the Workforce and Higher Education Committee and the Select Committee on Data Centers, which evaluates the impact that large-scale data center projects have on the economy, the environment and infrastructure across the state. She was also appointed to the Data Center Study Commission.
A major concern that Workman has heard from residents across the state is data center water utilization and the discharge of potentially harmful chemicals into the water supply. She said she’s also heard complaints about data centers using AI-driven data to create a surveillance state to pry into people’s personal lives.
Currently, Workman is working to get House Bill 710 enacted. The bill, which was introduced on Feb. 24, 2026, would put some limitations on data centers and how they could be funded; it was referred to the House General Government Committee.
“That's legislation I jointly sponsored with Steve Demetriou that would do four things: it would eliminate the paving over of prime farm land for data center development and force data centers to repurpose ground field sites,” Workman said.
“I also eliminated the eminent domain or fast grabs that we’re hearing about for these developments; it prevents any cost shifting to the residential or commercial rate payer, protecting our community from increasing electricity rates. It also addresses some other concerns related to the county commissioners' involvement in the process. It’s a really strong bill. I actually received threats in Columbus about this bill, but I am advocating for the needs of this community and moving really hard to move that legislation. The chairwoman has full authority about how that legislation moves forward. She actually resigned this summer and I don’t know who the new chair will be when we return. I will continue to advocate for that bill and it would essentially end this data center in Shalersville, because it's prime farmland.”
Democratic candidate Jeff Clapper
As a blue-collar worker, a father and an appointed official in city government, Clapper said he’s ready to take the local fight to the state level.
“I get the struggles that people are going through,” Clapper said. “I’m a truck driver, I got one kid just out of college, one in college, I got a mortgage, I’m buying health insurance, I’m buying groceries and I get the struggle people are going through and I have legislative experience. I did seven years on Kent’s planning commission and now three years on Kent City Council.”
Clapper opposes corporate landlords and private equity groups that buy up homes, because it makes it hard for young homebuyers to find a home. During his time on Kent City Council, Clapper has helped bring relief to homeowners with a bill that puts money back into homeowners’ pockets.
“This April, we rolled out a program that, if you buy a house that was a rental property and you make that your primary residence, we’ll give you $10,000 in forgivable down payment assistance,” Clapper said. “That’s going to help stabilize the prices for everybody around you because they’re no longer an investment property; now it’s somebody’s home. I think there needs to be a ban on corporate landlords and private equity groups buying single-family homes.”
He also supports House Bill 665, which seeks to ban AI-driven pricing algorithms in markets. And he supports lowering property taxes, if a common sense plan is proposed.
When it comes to the removal of the gas tax, Clapper said it doesn’t bring enough relief considering the elevated prices in other sectors.
“The removal of the gas tax is a very terrible Band-aid on the issue,” Clapper said. “For most Ohioans, it doesn't really amount to that much savings, especially compared to the struggles that we’re facing everywhere else. That money’s got to come from somewhere and I don’t think it was the right solution. There’s tons of state legislation that could be passed that could really crack down on fuel prices, but it’s overall policy, it’s overall tenor of everything and how we look at our elected officials and who we’re letting make decisions and what position we’re putting ourselves in.”
Outside of increased costs, Clapper has his eye on bringing a birthing center to Portage County. After Clapper’s daughter became a NICU nurse in Cleveland, he realized the importance of a local birthing center, so expecting mothers have nearby access without having to drive to Cleveland.
“I think it’s tragic that we don’t have a birthing center here in Portage County,” Clapper said. “I know what she faces on a nightly basis with babies that need severe medical care and I can’t imagine being a parent and not having a hospital with ready access to have a child. I think that’s something that needs to be addressed along with the Medicare and Medicaid funding. The shortfalls we're facing, the way we handled the SNAP shortfall was laughable in the face of how much money we give to people that don’t need it.”
Creating legislation to regulate data centers at the state level is at the top of Clapper’s agenda and is the main issue that led him to run for state representative.
“I think the two big ones right out of the gate would be addressing school funding, updating and implementing the fair school funding plan as part of the next state budget, and probably first and foremost on most people’s minds in the area is putting in sensible legislation to control data centers,” Clapper said. “The fight against data centers is why I started my run for state representative. Win or lose the election, I’ll still be fighting for it. I’ve met some people that are truly scared about what could potentially happen.”
In recent weeks, Workman, among others, shared a Facebook post that Clapper wrote in 2012 about gun owners.
“Here’s where the gun control reform conversation should start,” Clapper wrote in the post. “All guns are illegal to own. If you are caught with a gun you will be executed on the spot with it. Work backwards from there!”
Clapper said it wasn’t the right words to use, but he made the post after the Sandy Hook shooting and his passions were high because he had children of his own in school. Since then, Clapper has become a gun owner and said he now supports sensible gun ownership.
Libertarian candidate Fricke
Fricke is a lead inspector and the owner of Cleveland Analytical, a local lead laboratory. The business primarily serves home inspectors in Cuyahoga County. He ran for Congress in 2020, is currently the chair of the Akron sector of the American Chemical Society and was the campaign manager for Sensible Kent, a marijuana decriminalization project.
Fricke’s campaign strategy is a bit out of the ordinary: he’s politicking to the passengers of his Lyft car.
“I’ve been driving Lyft around the district talking one on one; I think it’s a great way to campaign,” Fricke said. “I did it when I ran for congress, I did it with Sensible Kent, which is the marijuana decriminalization voter initiative in Kent that I was campaign manager for that got 86% of the votes. Instead of knocking on people's doors, I have a captive audience in my cab for 10 minutes, and if they don’t want to talk about politics, we don’t, but most people do and they find out I’m running for office. I think I’ve had more one-on-one conversations during the campaign than either of my opponents based on the way I’ve been campaigning. It’s been great. I have a zero dollar campaign going on: I haven’t spent any money, I haven’t accepted any donations. I go out, I drive Lyft, talk to constituents in the district, find out what’s on their mind and it’s been a great way to meet people.”
Fricke is campaigning on three main issues, with gerrymandering being his number one issue.
“The Republicans are in charge in Ohio, so they’re gerrymandering here in Ohio, but the Democrats do it in New York,” Fricke said. “It’s like a race to see who can gerrymander the country the best for the midterms, and I have a real problem with that. It's politicians picking their voters instead of the voters picking the politicians. When you have a structural problem like that, it makes the primary become the real contest, and primaries by nature spit out, I would say, more extreme candidates, which is why the left and the right can’t talk anymore, because they’re so gerrymandered to the point that you have to trust them like the enemy. That’s my number one position.”
Fricke’s number two key campaign issue is his opposition to what he called the recriminalization of marijuana, like “using the Flock cameras to catch people who are going into Michigan to buy cheaper marijuana.”
Testing for lead paint in Portage County’s residential homes is Fricke's third key campaign talking point. Fricke said Portage County is the “wild, wild west” when it comes to lead regulations, because there are no requirements to test for lead paint unless someone gets poisoned. There is also no lead testing mandate in Portage County prior to selling a home.
“I work in the environmental lead field. I’m a home inspector, and I’ve had to go to houses in Portage County where the child was poisoned by lead and it was because of lead paint,” Fricke said.
Fricke said one of the reasons that homeowners don’t get their homes tested for lead is because it costs $500 for a home inspector to do it, which then makes it mandatory for a homeowner to include that information in the event that they sell their home. Fricke's solution to these problems is for homeowners to take a free class at his company, Cleveland Analytical, and do the lead test themselves. The class teaches homeowners how to get a dust sample from their homes and send it to his laboratory for testing at the cost of $100.