Thread by @HenryJGomez

An #OH11 thread with some inside baseball history

In 2009, Nina Turner split with Cleveland's Black political establishment to back a ballot measure meant to reform the corrupted county government. Turner's side won. The Black newspaper vilified her.

cleveland.com/metro/2009/11/…

Despite that, Turner at the time was seen as a prospect for mayor or the new county executive position. Instead she launched a primary campaign against then-Rep. Marcia Fudge.

Turner dropped the primary challenge idea pretty quickly, as Fudge had the Black establishment firmly in her corner, and that definitely matters in #OH11. Fudge endorsed Turner's secretary of state run in 2014.

Turner lost the statewide race badly, and went from Ready for Hillary to prominent Bernie Sanders supporter in the blink of an eye.

Meanwhile, Shontel Brown was winning a seat on the County Council that the Turner-backed ballot measure created.

Shontel Brown also became chair of the Cuyahoga County Democrats — a position once held by the corrupt county commissioner the reform measure was targeted at.

Brown, essentially, consolidated power in the new county regime that Fudge and the Black establishment never wanted.

Fudge helped Brown win the county chair job. She is, indeed, Brown's mentor, even if an endorsement was tricky once she was in the Cabinet.

Turner by this point was entrenched in Bernie's orbit. Around that time she told me she still thought about being mayor or a congresswoman.

This @marknaymik story from earlier this year was very much a tell at how close Fudge and Brown still were and how their political network was one and the same.

Regardless of whether Nina Turner spent five years as a top Bernie surrogate, the establishment back home in Cleveland was always going to be an obstacle for her. While some have forgiven her for the county reform push, she was not among the party insiders like Brown was.

And as nationalized as this race became, the seeds of Turner's loss — and Brown's victory — were planted more than a decade ago.

I asked @ninaturner last week if she felt any of the same vibes in the #OH11 race that she did during the county reform fight.

"I do, but 100 times hotter," she told me. "You know, my grandmother used to say, 'New levels, new devils.'"

As for Shontel Brown, running the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party requires patience for and deftness with rival factions. She and Turner may have taken different paths to this race, but they're very much central to the story of Northeast Ohio politics over the last 15 years.