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WARREN, Ohio -- U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, who is running for re-election in the 6th Congressional District, has a significant financial advantage over his challengers.
With the May 3 primary closing in, Johnson, R-Ohio and a resident of the Marietta area, reported $1,343,766 in his campaign fund as of March 31 - the last day of the first quarter.
Johnson, who was first elected in 2010, raised $186,681 during the first three months of this year with $131,400 coming from political action committees and $55,281 from individuals, according to his campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Among the political action committees giving him $5,000 donations in the first quarter were AT&T of Dallas, Political Education Patterns of Cleveland, Koch Industries Inc. of Washington, D.C., and Huck PAC of Little Rock, Ark. The latter is the PAC for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Johnson spent $103,115 during the first quarter with his largest expenses being $16,261 to 814 Consulting LLC of Alexandria, Va., for fundraising consulting; $14,500 to Red Brick Strategies of Columbus for fundraising consulting; $10,000 to the Ohio Republican Party; and $9,634 to Communications Counsel of Columbus for media consulting.
The new 6th Congressional District includes all of Jefferson, Harrison, Columbiana, Carroll, Belmont, Mahoning, Monroe, Noble and Washington counties and portions of Stark and Tuscarawas counties. Mahoning is the district's most-populous county.
Republicans Michael S. Morgenstern of Poland, John Anderson of Enon and Gregory M. Zelenitz of Belmont didn't file campaign finance reports.
Candidates who don't raise or spend at least $5,000 aren't required to file quarterly reports with the FEC.
Four Democrats are running for their party's 6th District nomination in the May 3 primary.
Only Louis Lyras of Campbell filed a first-quarter report.
Lyras reported loaning $50,000 to his campaign: $20,000 on Jan. 10 and $30,000 on March 23. He raised nothing from donors.
Lyras unsuccessfully ran in the 2020 Republican primary for the 13th District, which was redrawn as part of the statewide congressional redistricting process. All of Mahoning County is now in the 6th District.
Lyras also submitted petitions to run as an independent for the 13th in 2018, but didn't qualify for that ballot.
In addition to the $50,000, Lyras loaned $134,400 to those previous unsuccessful campaigns and owes himself $11,631 for debt to various vendors from the second quarter of 2019.
Lyras spent $1,781 in the first quarter of this year with $1,570 of it going toward web design.
The other Democrats seeking the nomination who didn't file campaign finance reports were Eric Jones of Austintown, Martin Alexander of Boardman and Shawna Roberts of Belmont.