Shaver challenges Latta in OH-5

FOSTORIA — Affordability, accountability and availability are at the heart of Brian Shaver's campaign for Congress as he looks to unseat 10-term U.S. Rep. Bob Latta in this year's midterm elections. Shaver is the Democratic nominee in Ohio's 5th Congressional District. He won a tight primary in May over a field of four candidates. So who is Brian Shaver? The Advertiser-Tribune followed him on the campaign trail, on his Tacos & Transparency tour, and spoke with him and members of his team. Who is Brian Shaver? Shaver is a lifelong northwest Ohioan, born and raised in Fostoria, where he still lives on a small family farm with his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Genevieve. He has served on Fostoria City Council since 2012 and is its current president. He teaches social studies at Fostoria Junior/Senior High School. The Shaver family traces its Fostoria roots to the 1830s, and union membership runs through it. His grandmother worked at the Fostoria and Sandusky Ford plants and his father worked at Atlas Crankshaft, both as members of the local UAW chapter. His mother was a union member while working at Fostoria City Schools, and Shaver is a member of the Fostoria Education Association. His campaign team said he has been endorsed by the Buckeye Veterans Coalition, the Northeast Ohio Democratic Veterans Caucus and the UAW State CAP Council. Shaver has spent his entire career in education, which began after he graduated from Bluffton College, now Bluffton University, in 1999. Along the way he has kept adding to his own schooling. He spent a summer in South Africa with other teachers studying the intersection of economic development, education and international relations. His coursework in international relations at the University of Toledo was the most impactful, he said. "That was probably one of the most important series of coursework that I've ever taken that's helped shape who I am as an educator and a person, both professionally and politically," Shaver said. He also earned a master's degree in educational leadership from Bowling Green State University and is pursuing a doctorate in leadership studies. Most of his teaching career was spent in private Catholic schools, but the work has taken him across northwest Ohio. He has long-term subbed in special education classes, taught in juvenile detention centers and worked for a year at Toledo Islamic Academy. He has lived in Fostoria through all of it, and in 2017 he took the job at Fostoria Junior/Senior High School, where he has taught since. That classroom experience, along with his daughter's graduation from high school in the spring, is what pushed him to run for federal office. "Over the past 26 years, I have done everything in a school besides working in a cafeteria and driving a bus," Shaver said. "I enjoy the classroom time the most. But, throughout my entire career I've seen what our bureaucracy, standardized testing, and politicians have done to interfere with simply teaching and learning." The 'Triple A' platform Shaver and his team call the affordability, accountability and availability trio the "Triple A" platform. Julia Hada, the campaign's communications director, said availability is its strongest piece. The campaign is deeply grassroots, run on volunteers and individual donations, and what has gained Shaver the most traction is the number of places he has turned up and the conversations he has had face to face. The money gap is wide. FEC filings show Shaver's campaign has raised $8,700, compared with more than $1 million in cash on hand for Latta. One place to find Shaver is a Mexican restaurant on a Tuesday evening. The Tacos & Transparency tour gives voters across the political spectrum a chance to raise their concerns in an informal, unstructured town hall. At those stops, Shaver eats with voters from every corner of the district and listens to their concerns and their criticisms. "The most outstanding thing about Brian is his ability to listen. If there's one thing I've noticed about him, it's what you might call his 'listening face,'" Hada said. "He's willing to hear from every side of the aisle. He's willing to have constructive conversations with people who don't agree with him… in fact he likes it. He's not going to cut them off or argue with them." Shaver said the point is access. "Really the goal is to open it up to people who have questions. It'll make me a better candidate, it'll make them more of an informed voter, it'll let me know if I have any gaps in my platform, but I'm really trying to meet the people where they are. I want to be able to provide answers and show that I am a visible candidate that's really interested in understanding the district," he said. He does not save those conversations for his own events. Hada said he turns up at county fairs, parades, sporting events and plenty of more obscure gatherings. One he mentioned to the Advertiser-Tribune was Skunkfest in North Ridgeville, a September celebration for skunk owners and enthusiasts that features skunk-themed contests, games and educational activities. None of it is new, Shaver said. He and his wife have long spent their free time at local events and trivia nights. Campaigning has turned that up a notch. The other two A's track with what he is hearing from voters. The issue that comes up first, he said, is affordability. "Frankly, people are fed up with the way things are. They're fed up with the high grocery prices, gasoline prices, and utility bills. All of the affordability issues come from a lack of accountability from our elected leader, especially in Washington, D.C." His plan includes ending the war in Iran and the Trump administration's tariffs, particularly those hitting Ohio soybean farmers; restructuring the medical field to keep insurance companies out of decisions made by doctors and patients; and getting corporate money out of politics. The war began Feb. 28 with joint U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran and Iranian retaliation against U.S. bases and allied nations in the region. Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding June 17 laying out terms to end the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but Trump declared the agreement over July 8. Both sides have exchanged fire since. Corporate money and interests, Shaver said, are what have eroded accountability in Congress. "Our elected officials are not being accountable to their constituents, they're not being accountable to the Constitution," he said. "All of these things wouldn't be happening if we had a Congress that actually held the Executive in check according to the Constitution. Not tell him he can't do stuff, but tell him if you want to do this stuff, you have to do it within Constitutional Law." The race ahead Ohio had to redraw its congressional boundaries before the 2026 elections because of a constitutional amendment, passed in May 2018, that shortened the life of maps approved without bipartisan support. The Ohio Redistricting Commission voted unanimously Oct. 31, 2025, to approve a new map, which takes effect this year. The district now covers roughly 760,000 Ohioans across 176 ZIP codes and all or part of nine counties, stretching from Lorain County in north-central Ohio to Wood and Hancock counties. Before redistricting, it took in all or part of 12 counties and reached the Ohio-Indiana border. The 5th has been a Republican stronghold for more than 85 years. A Republican has held the seat every term since the 1938 election, and only four men have held it in that time. Cliff Clevenger served 10 terms starting in 1939. Latta's father, Del Latta, followed with 15 terms. Paul Gillmor won 10 elections and served from 1989 until his death in 2007. Bob Latta has held the seat since, winning the special election to replace Gillmor in December 2007 and is now in his 10th term. He is seeking an 11th. Statewide, Ohio has backed the Republican presidential candidate in eight of the last 12 cycles, has had at least one Republican senator since 1994 and has sent a Republican majority to the U.S. House in every election since 1988. The current climate has still put Ohio near the center of national attention as Election Day approaches. Republicans hold the presidency and majorities in both chambers. But in the 22 midterms since 1938, 20 have cost the president's party seats in the House. The only exceptions were 1998 and 2002. President Donald Trump's approval rating stood at 34% in a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted July 6-12. That is below his 40% at the same point in his first term in August 2018, when Democrats went on to take the House, and modestly below Joe Biden's 37% in the summer of 2022, when Republicans took it back. Shaver believes that shift, paired with the new map, gives him an opening at something no Democrat has managed since before the United States entered World War II. People over partisanship The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Shaver faces a tall task, but he believes a campaign built on people over partisanship can get him across the finish line. "I am here to represent people. I think one of the biggest issues of our government right now is that we have polarized ourselves, both Democrat and Republican, to the point where there is so much gridlock, that really nothing is happening at the Congressional level in D.C." He believes he is the one to break that gridlock, working across the aisle on legislation aimed at the problems facing everyday Americans. "We need to start putting people first… over interest… over partisanship, and go with some common sense stuff that people can get behind and start getting something done in D.C. I'm the person that can do that, more so than the person that's already had 20 years to try to do something."