Ohioans in Dayton Call Out Jon Husted’s Out of Touch Attacks on Hardworking Families

Ohioans in Dayton Call Out Jon Husted's Out of Touch Attacks on Hardworking Families

April 23, 2026

Husted: "People living in poverty are just not very, they're not very experienced at navigating the real world"

DAYTON, OHIO - Today, Ohioans in Dayton gathered for the fourth stop of Husted's Real World Tour, calling out Jon Husted for his out of touch attacks on hardworking families.

Ohioans are already struggling with high grocery and utility prices due to Jon Husted's corruption, and the skyrocketing cost of gas is forcing families to cut back even more. Instead of working to lower costs, Jon Husted has insulted struggling Ohioans as "not very experienced at navigating the real world" and dismissed the mounting affordability crisis by telling Ohioans to fix their "work ethic" and to simply "earn more" money to make ends meet.

"Today, we are here celebrating Earth Day, and we hope to bring many politicians in Washington like Senator Jon Husted back to Earth, and back to reality. The reality is many people are struggling paycheck to paycheck. The reality is the gas prices are higher," said State Representative Desiree Tims (Dayton - District 38). "We need to bring down the cost of your electricity bill - we can't have politicians cutting backroom deals with utility companies to the tune of billions of dollars that we are subsidizing. We can have an Ohio that we can all afford, but it requires our politicians coming to the table and living in reality."

"Jon Husted has said that poor people don't know how to navigate the real world. And I guess if you think about the world that Jon Husted lives in, he is probably right. In Jon Husted's world there are the people like him at the top, the people with so much power and privilege that they feel like the rules do not apply to them," said Rose Lounsbury, candidate for State Representative (Dayton - District 36). "They can engage in the largest bribery scandal in the history of our state with zero consequences. They have no responsibility for their actions and they feel no accountability, and they feel justified taking advantage of the rest of us."

"Jon Husted says that you don't know how the world works and that affordability is just a buzzword. Jon Husted says that I just need to work harder to overcome the cost of inflation," said Chris Gibbs, a soybean farmer in Shelby County. "I know how the world works. And all I see is Jon Husted on the sidelines, supporting the very policies that make it harder for me and my fellow farmers to survive."

"I realize that Jon Husted is not very experienced at navigating the real world. His policies reflect an inability to recognize the needs and struggles of his own constituency. When I listen to Senator Husted, I hear a man who doesn't know how to navigate real world issues faced by Ohioans on a daily basis," said Rev. Aileen Maddox of the St. Paul AME Zion Church in Dayton. "His response to those struggling has been to earn more money, as if he is not aware of the fact that many Ohioans are working for low wages and the fact that they are low wage earners mean that they are taxed more due to the policies voted on by Senator Husted."

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