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Dani Isaacsohn, 37, Ohio House Minority Leader
Rep. Dani Isaacsohn needs only to walk down his block in Over-the-Rhine to remember why he wanted to represent downtown Cincinnati, Westwood and Price Hill at the Ohio Statehouse.
Isaacsohn told The Enquirer he walks his neighborhood and sees a school where kids are learning to read or a halfway house or people living on the street.
“It’s both humbling and it focuses you, right?” he said. “It makes it very clear to me, my job in Columbus is to try and get things done for the people in my district because that’s what they need me to do. They need me to be effective.”
Who is Dani Isaacsohn?
As the Ohio House minority leader, Isaacsohn is Cincinnati’s most powerful Democrat in the statehouse. He may be the first minority leader from Cincinnati, as best as researchers can tell from statehouse records.
Issacsohn ran for office after founding Cohear, a community engagement firm that created focus groups of people he calls “everyday experts,” the people who live the issues lawmakers focus on.
He said the seven years he spent running Cohear taught him that when you sit down and talk with people, the issues they care about most typically are not obviously partisan, like having a child who’s struggling in school or having trouble keeping up with rent.
“What drives me is the belief that we can actually make huge amounts of progress on the issues people desperately need us to move forward on, even in a state as politically divided as Ohio,” he said.
The one change he wants for Cincinnati
Issacsohn said his parents immigrated to the United States and moved to Ohio because they believed in the “American dream.” For them, that meant the ability to have a good job, live a good life they could afford, feel safe in their neighborhood and send their children to good schools.
“The dream for Cincinnati and for Ohio is that we get back to that version of Ohio,” he said.
He said some in Ohio have tried to adopt the “extremist culture war” politics of states like Texas and Florida, which he believes has the state going in the wrong direction when it comes to issues like affordability and supporting public schools.
Ohio has an opportunity to get back to being an affordable place to raise a family, he said.
“If and when we figure it out, which I believe we can, it’ll be a game changer in a state with 12 million people who really need us to go in a new direction,” he said.
Regional politics reporter Erin Glynn can be reached at eglynn@enquirer.com or @eringlynn on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Dani Isaacsohn’s ‘American dream’ version of Ohio | People to watch
Reporting by Erin Glynn, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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