Nina Turner: Nina Hudson Turner (born December 7, 1967) is an educator and politician in the United States. She was a member of the Democratic Party and served in the Cleveland City Council from 2006 to 2008, as well as the Ohio Senate from 2008 to 2014.
Turner ran for Ohio Secretary of State as a Democrat in 2014, but lost to incumbent Jon Husted in the main election, earning 35.5 percent of the vote.
Turner was a supporter of Bernie Sanders during his presidential campaign in 2016, and in 2017 he became the president of the Sanders-affiliated organization Our Revolution. Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign has her as a national co-chair.
Turner ran in the Democratic primary for Ohio’s 11th congressional district in the 2021 special election but lost to Shontel Brown. Turner announced his intention to compete for the seat in the 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Ohio on January 26, 2022.
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Nina Turner Early Career As State Senator
In 2001, she started her professional career as an adviser to state Senator Rhine McLin. Turner worked for Mayor Michael R. White of Cleveland. She then became a state and federal advocate for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
- Cleveland City Council (2006–2008) is a local government in Cleveland, Ohio.
- Turner ran for City Council in Cleveland in 2001 but was beaten by incumbent Joe Jones.
- Jones resigned from the City Council in November 2004.
Tonya Jones, his wife, received the most votes in a nonpartisan primary held in September to choose a candidate to fill Jones’ seat. Turner defeated Tonya Jones in the November 2005 election to become the first African American woman elected to the Council Member for Ward One.
From 2006 to 2008, Turner was a member of the Cleveland City Council.
Special Election in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District in 2021
The media began reporting on December 9, 2020, that President-elect Joe Biden planned to name Congresswoman Marcia Fudge as his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development candidate. Turner submitted paperwork with the Federal Election Commission the same day to form a committee called “Nina for Us” (FEC).
Fudge’s nomination was made official on December 10th, and Turner announced her campaign in the special election for Ohio’s 11th congressional district five days later. Turner’s campaign raised more than $4.5 million.
Turner spent more than half a million dollars on advertising as early as April. Bernie Sanders, the Squad, and other notable progressive democrats and PACs all endorsed Turner.
In the Democratic primary for the seat, she was considered the favorite, but she lost to Shontel Brown in August 2021.
Turner blamed her loss on corporate donations and Super-PAC money in her concession speech, claiming, “We didn’t lose this campaign. This election was rigged and slandered by evil money.”
Turner‘s campaign, according to HuffPost, spent too much money on consultants rather than television ads, and did not “adequately respond to the expected assaults on Turner’s history of friction with prominent Democratic Party heavyweights.”
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Election for Ohio’s 11th Congressional District in 2022
Turner submitted paperwork with the Federal Election Commission in September 2021 to run for Congress in the same district in 2022. Despite the fact that she did not publicly proclaim her desire to run for the seat at the time, her application was filed “the door is left open Turner has previously stated that she will run for Congress again “The Plain Dealer reports on this.
Turner announced her desire to run against Brown for the second time on January 26, 2022.
Nina Turner’s Relationship With Bernie Sanders
Turner initially backed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 but later moved her support to Bernie Sanders. Jill Stein urged Turner to become the Green Party’s vice-presidential contender after Clinton won the nomination, but she declined, saying, “I believe that the Democratic Party is worth fighting for.”
Turner went on to state that she will not support Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential Election against Donald Trump, instead endorsing the party’s platform rather than an individual candidate.
Turner participated in the Democratic National Committee’s Unity Reform Commission in Washington, D.C. in December 2016 to address complaints about the presidential nominating process, including the roles of caucuses, superdelegates, and corporate financing.
2016 Presidential Campaign of Bernie Sanders
Turner was named president and public face of Our Revolution, a leftist political action organization founded by Bernie Sanders during his presidential campaign in 2016.
Our Revolution had become “flailing” and “in chaos” a year into her tenure, according to a May 2018 Politico analysis.
The organization’s monthly fundraising totals in May 2018 were one-third of what they were in May 2017. According to Politico, the group “showed no capacity to tilt a key Democratic contest in its favor—despite holding Sanders’ email list, the envy of the Democratic Party—and can claim no major victory in 2018 as its own.”
There was internal strife as members of the organization worried whether Turner was utilizing the organization to launch her own presidential campaign. They questioned whether she was settling old scores with the Democratic National Committee, and they chastised her for promoting allies to top posts inside the organization.
Our Revolution also endorsed Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic primary for governor of Ohio in 2018, prompting questions about Turner’s tight relationship with Kucinich’s running mate.
Bernie Sanders Running For President in 2020
Turner was designated a national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign on February 21, 2019. She appeared with Chris Matthews on Hardball, Sanders has been featured on Meet the Press, Politics Nation, State of the Union, and other shows.
Turner started her displeasure with being forced to choose between presumptive Democratic contender Joe Biden and incumbent Donald Trump just weeks before the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
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She told The Atlantic’s Peter Nicholas, “‘You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you have to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing,’ it’s like telling someone. It’s still a shambles.” Turner declined to endorse Joe Biden for President of the United States in 2020 after Biden was announced as the Democratic nominee.
Turner formed the progressive public affairs firm Amare Public Affairs in September 2020, in collaboration with Mercury Public Affairs.