Strickland won the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, defeating former Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld.
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Portman had 84 percent of the vote to 16 percent for Don Elijah Eckhart of the Columbus area with less than 1 percent of precincts reporting unofficial returns Tuesday evening.
Democrats have targeted swing-state OH as among the places where they could win a Senate seat in their quest to retake a majority. Strickland says he’ll look out for working Ohioans. He now faces incumbent Senator Rob Portman in the general election. Rob Portman is beholden to the special interests, the rich and the powerful, the millionaires and the billionaires.
Eckhart is a former legislative service commission employee. The Cincinnati councilman challenged Strickland over the party’s wishes. He also served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
He served as governor from 2007 to 2011, narrowly losing re-election to current Gov. John Kasich (R), who won Ohio’s GOP presidential primary on Tuesday.
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President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden this month announced their backing of Strickland, and in another example of looking ahead, the Strickland campaign scheduled a post-primary March 22 fundraiser in Cincinnati with Biden.
