Shontel Brown

CLEVELAND — The House Agriculture Committee may not sound like political battleground territory, but it controls the federal nutrition programs that millions of low-income Americans depend on — including SNAP, the food stamp program — along with farm policy, crop subsidies and rural development.

Who chairs it could depend, in part, on what voters in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District decide in the coming weeks.

U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown of Warrensville Heights, who represents a Cleveland-area district rated D+28 by the Cook Political Report, is positioning herself to become the committee’s top Democrat — and potentially its chair if Democrats retake the House. “It’s the one committee that impacts everybody every day,” she says.

But first she has to survive a May 5 Democratic primary against two challengers who argue her district has deteriorated on her watch and that her campaign finances compromise her independence. On the Republican side, two candidates will face off in their own primary for the right to compete in a district that has long been among Ohio’s most reliably Democratic.

Brown has served the 11th district since winning a 2021 special election and has more than $1 million in campaign cash, dwarfing the other candidates, none of whom reported raising any money in the last filing period. Pro-Israel groups have been among her largest campaign funding sources, according to OpenSecrets — a fact her Democratic challengers have made central to their campaigns.

Here is a closer look at the candidates:

Shontel Brown - Democrat

Brown, who serves on the House Agriculture and Oversight committees, says she has delivered millions of dollars in district funding each year, including money for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, school programs, and a Cuyahoga County swimming initiative. She describes herself as having the 15th most progressive voting record in Congress according to Progressive Punch.

She dismisses her challengers’ criticism of her campaign finances as misinformation, noting that PACs are legally capped at $5,000 per candidate and that she cannot control independent expenditures made on her behalf. She points instead to her legislative record on poverty, hunger and health care.

Brown is also poised for a significant jump in influence. When top Agriculture Committee Democrat Angie Craig of Minnesota leaves the House next year, Brown hopes to succeed her.

“I’m a fighter,” says Brown. “I’m taking on Trump and Republicans when they raise costs, cut our programs, attack our community, and I don’t back down. I’m focused on lowering costs of working families, whether it’s gas, goods, groceries, energy bills. Everything I do is about making life more affordable and addressing policies like tariffs that are driving prices up.”

Economy: Brown blames the Trump administration’s tariffs and the cost of the Iran war for rising prices, and opposes what she calls the “one big, ugly” budget bill, which she says makes the largest cuts to health care in the nation’s history to fund tax breaks for billionaires. She says she’s working to lower prescription drug costs and defend Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Immigration: Brown calls the Trump administration’s approach “cruelty, hateful, deadly.” She has repeatedly opposed ICE and CBP funding and introduced legislation to redirect those resources to the SNAP program. She says immigration reform is achievable without an “obstructionist” president blocking bipartisan deals.

U.S. intervention in Iran: Brown has opposed the war from the start, has voted for a war powers resolution to end it, and has vowed to oppose all further war funding. She argues the money spent daily on the conflict could instead fund Affordable Care Act tax credits and other domestic priorities.

Sean Freeman - Democrat

Freeman, who lives in Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood, works as the Tech for Good Growth Fellow at DigitalC, a nonprofit working to bring low-cost, high-speed internet to Cleveland residents. He has not held public office, but was awarded the Newman Civic Fellowship in 2018 for his work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers’ rights advocacy group based in Florida. He previously ran for the same seat as an independent.

Freeman says he broadly shares Brown’s values and goals, but argues that the hundreds of thousands of dollars she receives from PACs and special interest groups are not serving the district’s agenda. “One cannot be wholly focused on the needs of working people when partnering with deep-pocketed lobbyists,” he says.

Economy: Freeman calls for tax policies that make it less expensive for businesses to pay workers a livable wage than to rely on government supplement programs. He supports ending the ability of private equity to purchase homes, expanding renewable energy in the district, and providing federal child care, noting that the country did so during World War II.

Immigration: Freeman says ICE needs to be reined in and ordered to cease its current practices. He calls for investigating funds going toward detention facilities and for stronger protections for immigrants who are not committing crimes.

U.S. intervention in Iran: Freeman says the war achieved its initial goals quickly, with a dangerous leader removed from power within 72 hours, but that he does not support a continuation of the conflict. He says he would vote for a war powers resolution. Money spent on the war would be better spent to improve the lives of Americans, he said.

Ardelia Holmes - Democrat

Holmes, of Shaker Heights, is a teacher in the Cleveland area and an entrepreneur who co-founded the Shaker Heights Coalition for Equity and Accountability, which helps parents navigate the school district and provides protections for marginalized students and those with individualized education programs. She previously sought the congressional seat as an independent, and also ran for the Shaker Heights school board.

Holmes says she respects Brown but argues it is time for new progressive leadership. She singles out Brown’s acceptance of large donations from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, as a particular concern, saying that “anything that could sway my vote, or any type of loyalty due when my community is in crisis, I’m just not OK with doing that.” She says the district has seen serious decline on Brown’s watch, pointing to housing, school funding, food deserts, and health care crises.

Economy: Holmes calls for legislation tying utility costs to income levels, arguing that rate hikes are pricing residents out of their homes. She supports universal health care, affordable housing development, restoring SNAP benefits, and addressing food deserts, which she says are a particular problem in Cleveland. “My focus is really on restoring our district,” she says.

Immigration: Holmes says the current approach to immigration enforcement is “un-American and just horrible.” She calls for separating ICE funding from broader Department of Homeland Security appropriations so it can be legislated on its own, and says she supports modernizing the path to citizenship while opposing open borders. “The legal process of immigration is not a threat to our community at all,” she says.

U.S. intervention in Iran: Holmes says she is “100% against the war in Iran,” arguing the conflict began without a proper congressional vote and is driving up gas prices and diverting tax dollars from domestic needs. She says she supports a war powers resolution to end the conflict.

James Hemphill - Republican

Hemphill, of Cleveland Heights, is a real estate consultant and general contractor specializing in residential renovations. He made unsuccessful bids for the seat in 2022 and 2024. He founded Color of Conservatism in 2022, an organization that works in African American communities in Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia to expand awareness of the Republican Party’s contributions to those communities. He has also been an at-risk youth mentor since 2016.

Hemphill has said his life experiences give him insight into everyday struggles in the district. He spent nearly 70 months in prison on a 1990s drug trafficking charge, and in 2017 pleaded guilty to a theft charge in Lorain County, paying restitution to a customer who gave him a down payment for a fence that was never built. He also had a Chapter 13 bankruptcy case, which has since been resolved.

He argues that many African Americans hold conservative values but feel they have no option but to vote Democratic. “They’ve all kind of been trained to think that the Republicans are evil,” he has said.

Economy: Hemphill calls for retooling the workforce through trade schools and making it financially more advantageous for companies to manufacture products in the United States, whether through deregulation, tax credits, tariffs or other mechanisms.

Immigration: Hemphill calls for ending sanctuary cities, continuing and expanding deportations, and imposing stiffer penalties on people who impede ICE operations.

U.S. intervention in Iran: Hemphill supports the military intervention, saying he backs President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “having the courage to finally deal with the Iranian regime.”

Mike Kirchner - Republican

Kirchner, of Highland Heights, is a retired pension actuary who says his professional background analyzing retirement benefits is precisely why he is running. This is his first and, he says, last run for public office, describing the experience as a “negative four” on a scale of zero to 10. He is running a shoestring campaign — he says the only money he’s spent is an $85 filing fee and $40 for a website.

Kirchner says his main motivation for running is what he sees as an impending Social Security catastrophe which he has written about on his campaign website. He says the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted around 2032, at which point payroll tax revenue will only cover eight or nine monthly payments a year instead of twelve. His proposed solution is to stop collecting the employee portion of the FICA tax and redirect it into protected individual 401(k)-style accounts.

Economy: Kirchner says the federal government is spending $7 trillion while collecting only $5 trillion, which he calls “absurd.” He frames the looming Social Security shortfall as the central economic threat facing the country, arguing it needs to be addressed now while the economy is relatively stable. Medicare and Medicaid should be reviewed from an actuarial standpoint, though he considers those secondary to the Social Security problem.

Immigration: Kirchner says immigration policy should prioritize people who will contribute economically — skilled workers such as doctors, engineers and programmers.