The Case Against Mike Carey

To: Interested Parties
From: Riya Vashi, DCCC Regional Press Secretary
Date: May 5, 2026
Subject: The Case Against Mike Carey

Mike Carey was a registered corporate lobbyist for the coal industry for more than 20 years — collecting nearly $731,000 from his last employer alone in his final two years on the job, while working for PACs that funneled more than $1.9 million to politicians who reliably voted his clients’ way. His most prominent client, Murray Energy, was implicated in the largest public corruption scandal in Ohio history — a dark-money bribery scheme that raised utility bills on every Ohio family to pad his former boss’s bottom line.

In Congress, Carey has continued serving the same special interests, voting for his party’s Big, Ugly Bill that slashed Medicaid, ripped health care from OH-15 families, and handed massive tax breaks to big corporations and the wealthy.

Yet, somehow, Mike Carey calls himself an “outsider.” After two decades working within the system for rich CEOs, playing a central role in Ohio’s biggest corruption scandal, and racking up a toxic voting record that puts corporate donors first, Ohioans voters aren’t buying his promises.

OH-15 voters deserve better than a corporate lobbyist who has spent his life cashing checks from the people hurting them.

Carey is a Washington Swamp Lobbyist Who’s Spent Decades Selling Out Ohio

Mike Carey’s biggest lie is the one spotlighted on his campaign website, where he claims to be a “conservative outsider who has spent his career holding politicians accountable.” In reality, Mike Carey has spent his career paying politicians off.

For more than 20 years, Carey was a registered corporate lobbyist in Ohio, representing some of the most powerful coal interests in the country. By the time he decided to run for Congress, Carey was pulling in a six-figure coal-executive salary and sitting on a personal fortune worth as much as $1.4 million.

The corporate PACs Carey ran showered politicians with millions of dollars. The Murray Energy PAC pumped nearly $2 million into campaigns and committees hurting Ohioans during Carey’s tenure as Murray’s top lobbyist. The Ohio Coal Association PAC, which Carey chaired, funneled another $874,620 to candidates and PACs. While Ohio families were watching their utility bills climb, Carey was at ritzy dinners rubbing elbows with then-Speaker John Boehner and co-headlining winery cookouts with GOP congressmen — working the system for the wealthy and well-connected.

Carey Slashed Health Care and Food Assistance to Pay for Corporate Tax Breaks

Mike Carey’s vote for the Big, Ugly Bill enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history and stripped health coverage from over 31,000 OH-15 constituents to pay for massive tax breaks for the wealthy and the same kind of corporate interests he’s spent his entire career prioritizing.

For OH-15 families, the numbers are devastating. Roughly 32,000 Ohioans are set to pay nearly double on average for their ACA premiums after Carey and Republicans let the tax credits expire. For many, that means a choice between health insurance and rent. And with Medicaid slashed statewide, 11 Ohio hospitals could now be forced to close their doors — leaving working-class and rural Ohioans across the district with no place nearby to go when they get sick.

Carey also voted to strip food assistance from more than 32,000 OH-15 households that rely on SNAP, nearly half of them working families with kids. He voted to rubber-stamp Trump’s chaotic and expensive tariffs that are projected to cost the average Ohio family upwards of $2,500 this year in higher prices on groceries, gas, and appliances. And he voted to kill energy tax credits that were creating Ohio jobs and holding electricity prices down — all in service of tax cuts for billionaires.

For anyone paying attention to Mike Carey’s career, none of this is surprising. It’s the same pattern he ran for 20 years as a coal industry lobbyist. When the EPA moved to require coal plants to report on the pollution leaching into Ohio’s groundwater, Carey testified against it in Congress, calling clean water protections safeguarding Ohioans’ health part of an “EPA Train Wreck.” Those rules ultimately revealed what his industry had been hiding: 10 Ohio coal-fired power plants leaking cancer-causing arsenic, lead, and mercury into the groundwater Ohio families drink. When a 2007 collapse at a Murray Energy subsidiary mine killed six miners and three rescue workers — an accident federal regulators later determined was caused by the company’s own safety violations — Carey went on NPR to defend the CEO, insisting “I’ve never seen a person more committed to the safety of his workers than Bob Murray.” And when Murray Energy later declared bankruptcy and tried to walk away from the pensions and retiree health care its miners had spent their lives earning, Carey stood by as the company left workers to fend for themselves.

That’s Mike Carey’s record: two decades of choosing corporate profits over Ohio families, punctuated now by a vote in Congress that does the exact same thing on a national scale.

Carey Is At the Center of Ohio’s Biggest Corruption Scandal

If there’s one story that captures everything wrong with Ohio politics, it’s the FirstEnergy bribery scandal — and Mike Carey’s fingerprints are all over it. It’s the largest public corruption case in Ohio history: a nearly $61 million bribery scheme that put politicians in power, rammed through a taxpayer-funded bailout for failing power plants, and jacked up the electricity bill of every single Ohio family to pay for it. At the time the scandal was unfolding, Carey was the top lobbyist at Murray Energy Corporation, one of the companies that funneled dark money into the slush fund powering the whole scheme. Carey was the right hand man of Bob Murray, but when reporters first started asking questions about Carey’s role, his campaign lied and flatly denied it, insisting Carey “was not in any effort to push” the bailout bill through.

Then the emails surfaced. A trove of correspondence turned over by the Ohio House to the Department of Justice showed Carey copied on communications coordinating with the exact lawmakers writing the bailout bill — alongside a memo laying out specific amendments his industry wanted added.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING

WOSU: Central Ohio labor groups criticize Congressman Mike Carey for tax cut and spending bill vote [WOSU, 7/10/25]

“The labor groups for construction workers, nurses, and public school and local government employees say the budget law will only benefit the rich while hurting working families and potentially closing rural hospitals.

“Dorsey Hager, executive secretary/treasurer of the Columbus and Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, said Carey voted to kill 1.75 million construction jobs across the country, including positions in central Ohio. “This is the largest redistribution of wealth in the history of our country. That’s the real story behind this vote. Working people are being asked to pay the price again, while the wealthiest get more,” Hager said.”

Daily Beast: Trump Pick in Ohio Slammed as ‘Swampiest Swamp Creature’ [Daily Beast, 7/8/21]

“He’s the Trump-annointed candidate running to make the Columbus suburbs MAGA again. But while former energy lobbyist Mike Carey is happy to tout the former president’s endorsement in the GOP primary, he’s not quite as eager to talk about his proximity to one of Ohio’s most expensive corruption scandals.

“Carey’s campaign website touts him as an “outsider” who “spent his career holding politicians accountable and fighting for working class families.” But it only vaguely mentions his ‘20+ year career as an executive in the American energy industry.’”

WOSU: Central Ohio Republican U.S. reps ignore local media as shutdown nears one month mark [WOSU, 10/30/25]

Columbus Dispatch: Mike Carey doesn’t get it. Ohio needs Medicaid, not him to tap dance for rich | Opinion [Columbus Dispatch, 6/6/25]

“In a quiet House vote last Thursday night, Carey once again prioritized billionaires over working families, backing the “big, beautiful bill.” This legislation would extend those tax breaks while gutting Medicaid and SNAP. And this isn’t the first time Carey has put the needs of the rich over those of everyday Ohioans. Since March, Carey has voted three times to defund Medicaid to protect the interests of the ultra-wealthy.”

Columbus Dispatch: As lobbyist, Mike Carey had role in Murray Energy check to Householder dark money group [Columbus Dispatch, 8/11/22]

Cleveland.com: Ohio GOP Reps. Miller, Turner, Carey added to Democrats’ 2026 target list [Cleveland.com, 8/8/25]

WOSU: Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Carey’s office didn’t post call information for ‘tele-town hall’ publicly [WOSU, 4/2/25]

Columbus Dispatch: GOP candidate Mike Carey stays quiet on ties to Trump adviser accused of sexual harassment [Columbus Dispatch, 10/8/21]

PATH TO VICTORY

Mike Carey has grown weaker with every election. In 2024, Carey was reelected with his smallest margin yet, and the Democratic vote share in OH-15 has steadily climbed since he first squeaked into office in the 2021 special election. It’s a clear signal that voters are increasingly fed up with the lobbyist who was caught red-handed in the biggest public corruption scheme in Ohio history and spent his time in Congress serving the corporate donors who bankroll his campaign.

OH-15 has already shown it is ready to back Democrats. In 2024, Kamala Harris ran above her statewide margin in the district, while Bernie Moreno’s 2024 margin was nearly cut in half compared to the 2022 Republican Senate performance. That trend builds on the standard set by Senator Sherrod Brown, who carried OH-15 by more than 5 points in 2018. 

This November, Ohioans will build on this momentum and hold Mike Carey accountable at the ballot box.

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