Brian Poindexter, until recently a little-known Democratic candidate in a solidly Republican House district, lit a Marlboro cigarette and jammed a screwdriver into the latch of a shed door he had built. He ignored his phone, which had been blowing up in recent days because of a political scandal rocking Ohio.
“It’s crazy to have him running for Congress,” said the candidate’s father, Bob Poindexter, 68, who had made bolts for a living until he retired last year. He was watching his son work. “What would be really crazy is if he won.”
That prospect is rapidly becoming less crazy, as the campaign of Representative Max Miller, Republican of Ohio, has descended into turmoil over allegations that he had physically abused his wife and young daughter.
Mr. Poindexter, who turned 47 on Tuesday, is a hard hat-wearing, union card-carrying ironworker. With fresh opportunity — given Mr. Miller’s struggles — to win over voters in a Cleveland-area district that went for President Trump by double digits, he is the type of candidate some Democrats believe can claw back working-class voters who have flocked to Mr. Trump in recent years.
This week, he has set out to test that strategy in a Republican stronghold that is suddenly seen as competitive, and that could help Democrats retake the House.
Though he launched his campaign in January, Mr. Poindexter had been largely ignored by Democratic Party leadership until last week, when the fallout from an ugly custody battle between Mr. Miller and his ex-wife, the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno, spilled into the national news. The district, which stretches from Amish country to the suburban shores of Lake Erie, has been considered comfortably Republican for a decade.
Mr. Miller has denied the allegations, which include accusations from his ex-wife that he held a gun to her head, threw scalding water at her and fractured their daughter’s collarbone. He has insisted that he will not drop out of the race. But a media tour this week to control the damage, including a lengthy and erratic interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper in which he struggled to answer basic questions such as when he had last used illegal drugs, has prompted only further alarm among Republicans.
As a result, prominent Republicans have mounted a campaign to urge Mr. Miller to drop out of the race. Ohio law gives local party chairs until 4 p.m. on Monday to name a new candidate but requires a two-day notice to convene a meeting to do so.
This week, Mr. Trump called Mr. Miller and said he should reconsider his odds. White House staff members have expressed concern that the scandal will be hard to survive.
Mr. Miller did not respond to questions about Mr. Poindexter’s political viability.
As pressure on Mr. Miller has escalated, Mr. Poindexter is trying to step in. He is not a fan of what he described in a stump speech as a “vote for me because he sucks” strategy, a common messaging tactic among Democrats in the Trump era. He believes voters want more than that: a vision, a plan, a solution. But he is also hopeful that the fresh attention he’s getting could prompt Republicans and undecided voters to consider a Democrat.
What they would find, he said, was a “regular guy” who launched a campaign out of his shed after a day teaching apprentices how to install steel in buildings.
“I never got in this race to run because Max Miller is terrible in his personal life,” he said. “I got in it to run because of policies that hurt us.”
On Wednesday, he took a short-lived breather from the campaign to fix the door of his shed. Inside were signs of two of his passions: the Cleveland Browns and his own patriotism, expressed with a poster that reads, “Stand for the Flag, Kneel for the Cross.”
But Mr. Poindexter couldn’t stay. He walked to his Ram pickup truck and drove away. It was time to make some calls.
A Hard Hat Progressive
Mr. Poindexter is open about his every-man bona fides. He wears a hard hat in the main photo on his campaign website. And in an interview he told a story about one of the times he’d been arrested, after a fight with a Pittsburgh fan at a Browns game.
Mr. Poindexter was advised early in his campaign by Spencer Reed, a progressive political strategist who recruits working-class candidates and has a similar outlook as the operatives behind Graham Platner, the flannel-wearing oyster farmer and former Senate candidate in Maine who captured the energy on the left before sexual assault allegations ended his run.
Mr. Poindexter talks about friends he said were pushed into financial crisis by one high-cost emergency: a blown engine, or a surgery. Some, he said, have had to use GoFundMe to pay their medical bills. They are tired, he added, of living in a world where working hard was not enough to afford a good life. They think the government does too little to level the playing field. He agrees.
He grew up far away from politics. During his teenage years in Cleveland, he picked up a string of misdemeanor charges, including public intoxication, speeding and, once, assault. A single felony charge came when he and some buddies “got in a scrap with a couple other dudes” at a local beach.
At that point in his life, he supported Republicans for president because they seemed patriotic, and he liked the gusto.
That changed at 22 when he had his first daughter with his now ex-wife, and he said his priorities started to evolve.
Mr. Poindexter has benefited from his union job, which provides generous benefits and a $90,000 salary, allowing him to take a weeklong vacation with his then-wife and two daughters once a year. It also inspired him, he said, to run as a Democrat for City Council in Brook Park, home to a Ford Motor Company manufacturing plant. He won his city council races in a working-class area that was historically Democratic but has drifted toward Mr. Trump.
Now, Mr. Poindexter said, he is motivated by the integrity of Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, and by the public speaking chops of James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas. He has also been energized by Senator Bernie Sanders. The two appeared together at an event in May.
Mr. Poindexter insisted that he was “not running to carry the flag for the Democratic Party.”
“I am literally fighting for workers,” he said.
Republican officials in Ohio have used Mr. Poindexter’s appearance with Mr. Sanders to call him a socialist. Online critics have criticized his court record.
Mr. Miller’s campaign still plans to spend more than $760,000 on T.V. ads starting in September, according to AdImpact. Even as Republicans have urged him to step aside, Mr. Miller planned to loan his campaign $1 million of his own funds, according to a person familiar with his thinking who requested anonymity to describe campaign strategy.
Until last week, Mr. Poindexter had not been able to raise enough money to air ads on television this fall — but that appeared poised to change significantly.
He insisted that his campaign had not changed as a result of his opponent’s downward spiral. But at his campaign office, one date was circled on a wall calendar: The deadline for Mr. Miller to withdraw.
Nervous on the stump
Mr. Poindexter wrapped string around a wooden plank to hang a sign for the Strongsville Democratic Club. In addition to stepping in as their handyman, he was the group’s keynote speaker.
The event on Wednesday evening was initially scheduled to take place in a small room inside the local library, but an uptick of interest this week prompted organizers to pay $100 to book an outdoor pavilion. About 75 people showed up.
“Your honor!” Mr. Poindexter said to a man who had just arrived, slapping his hand. “What’s up, your honor?”
“I had to come by and support my dude,” said Sean Kilbane, a local municipal court judge.
Mr. Poindexter worked the crowd. People repeatedly asked about Mr. Miller.
“I don’t care about how terrible my opponent is — and trust me, there’s plenty to work with there,” he said to laughs.
Instead, he took aim at Washington, including Democrats. He offered an olive branch to Mr. Moreno, a Republican, complimenting his focus on Social Security. He seemed far more nervous on the stump than milling about the pavilion, but he grew more comfortable during a Q&A session.
One woman asked how he proposed to fix the immigration system. He led with his desire for “a secure border” but stressed that the government, not immigrants, should be blamed for allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States.
Another woman asked how he planned to address allegations of socialism.
“I’m a capitalist,” he replied. “I want to capitalize on my labor.”
The event ended with the host group’s leader calling Mr. Poindexter the best shot at flipping the Seventh District in a decade.
But Mr. Poindexter was not there to hear it. He had left early for do something for the first time in the eight months since he launched his campaign: make an appearance on national television.
Annie Karni contributed.
