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To: Interested Parties
From: Riya Vashi, DCCC Regional Press Secretary
Date: May 6, 2026
Subject: The Case Against Mike Turner
Kristina Knickerbocker has spent her life serving her community and her country. An Air Force veteran and former major at Wright-Patterson’s 88th Air Base Wing, Kristina helped lead the charge to strengthen medical care for servicemembers, veterans, and military families. In civilian life, she became a neuro-oncology nurse practitioner at The Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, caring for cancer patients across the region and watching a broken health care system force Ohioans to choose between treatment and everyday necessities. That system nearly failed her, too, when she suffered near-fatal complications during childbirth after medical professionals refused to listen to her. Now, Kristina is running for Congress to fight for Miami Valley families being squeezed by the same health care crises she’s seen on the front lines.
Mike Turner is the opposite of everything Kristina represents. After 24 years in Washington, Turner has lost touch with the Ohioans who first sent him there. The man OH-10 first elected has spent two decades trading in his principles to keep his seat at the table — pocketing millions in campaign cash from corporate PACs, steering taxpayer dollars toward his family and friends and going along with whatever his party’s leaders ask of him. When MAGA extremists took away his power, Turner didn’t push back. He rolled over for Trump. And when House Republicans needed a vote on the largest cut to Medicaid in American history — a vote that would rip health care from tens of thousands of OH-10 families to fund tax breaks for billionaires — Turner gave it to them without a fight. The Miami Valley deserves better than a tired career politician who has stopped fighting for them. Ohioans are ready for a fresh voice like Kristina Knickerbocker, who has spent her life standing up for hardworking families instead of cashing checks from the corporations hurting them.
Three Decades of Putting Washington Over The Miami Valley
After more than three decades in elected office, Mike Turner has long stopped showing up for the people who sent him there. Turner has spent that time collecting corporate cash, going along with whatever his billionaire donors ask of him, and losing sight of the working families he was first elected to fight for.
Over his decades in office, Turner has taken more than $3 million in campaign cash from corporate PACs and has reliably voted in the best interests of his corporate backers. He’s voted in lockstep with his party to hand massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and carried water for corporate special interests at every turn, while Southwest Ohio families struggle to afford groceries, gas, and health care. When Turner has to choose between the corporations funding his campaigns and the constituents he was elected to represent, the corporations win every single time.
Turner has sided with party insiders and lobbyists on nearly every consequential question before Congress — voting 63 times to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act, backing repeated efforts to gut Medicare, voting 20 times to defund or attack Planned Parenthood, and ban abortion. Rather than fight for his district, Turner has stayed silent and fallen in line with his party bosses time and time again.
Unlike Turner, Kristina has spent her career on the frontlines of health care, not in the back rooms of Washington. As an oncology nurse practitioner, she has cared for Ohioans in need across Southwest Ohio. As an Air Force veteran, she has served her country in uniform. And in Congress, she will fight to ensure working families across OH-10 have access to the quality, affordable health care Mike Turner is voting to take away.
After Public Humiliation by Trump and Speaker Johnson, Turner Fell in Line With His D.C. Bosses
For years, Mike Turner claimed to be a serious voice on national security, but when MAGA leaders in his own party came for him, Turner didn’t have the spine to defend himself. Last year, Speaker Mike Johnson, under direct pressure from Donald Trump, removed Turner from his chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee — a public humiliation Turner answered with total silence. He didn’t push back. He didn’t speak up. He fell in line. And he continues to do their bidding.
Turner has sacrificed his once independent voice to stay in the good graces of the Washington extremists who humiliated him, no matter the cost to his own constituents. As the Trump Administration dragged the United States into an unpopular and costly military escalation against Iran, Turner has spent his time on cable news defending the operation, the needless spending, and the administration’s handling of it — even as his own constituents continue to pay the price at the gas pump.
While Turner is on TV cheerleading the war, OH-10 families are watching their everyday costs skyrocket. Gas prices in the Dayton area climbed nearly $1 per gallon in a single week, topping $5 per gallon at some stations. Miami Valley truck drivers have been forced to absorb the cost increases or pass them on to the small businesses they serve. While working families across the Miami Valley are feeling pain at the pump and struggling to make ends meet, Mike Turner continues to defend the reckless war of choice driving those costs up.
After a long 24 years in Washington, it’s clear Mike Turner no longer has the will or the spine to stand up for the people who elected him. OH-10 deserves a leader like Kristina Knickerbocker, who has spent her life answering the call to serve time and time again — serving at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, caring for patients as a nurse practitioner, and giving back to her community. She’s running a grassroots campaign built on small-dollar donations, not corporate handouts, because Ohioans are ready to restore trust in a government that Mike Turner has lost by sending someone to Congress who refuses to be bought.
Turner Sold Out Ohio to Pay for Billionaire Tax Cuts
Mike Turner’s fingerprints are all over the biggest attacks on Ohioans’ health care in a generation. He has voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act time after time after time, repeatedly endangering the health care of over 31,000 of his own constituents. He was a key vote for the Big, Ugly Bill — the disastrous Republican tax scam that includes the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, handing massive tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations while stripping coverage from tens of thousands of OH-10 residents.
The damage in Turner’s own district is staggering. Over 18,000 OH-10 constituents are projected to lose their Medicaid coverage, while another 13,100 are estimated to lose access to affordable health care after Turner let the ACA tax credits expired. For the 31,000 OH-10 residents who rely on the ACA marketplace, Turner’s vote means their premiums are spiking by 114% on average — more than doubling their costs. As a result, 11 hospitals in Ohio are now at risk of closing, leaving rural and working-class Ohioans with nowhere to turn for care. In Montgomery County alone, nearly one in three residents — almost 168,000 people — rely on Medicaid. Turner voted to put their coverage on the chopping block anyway.
Turner also voted to slash food assistance for the more than 40,000 households in his district that rely on SNAP to feed their families — half of which include a person with a disability, and 40% of which have children. He’s repeatedly refused to stand up to his party’s chaotic tariffs that are projected to cost Ohio families $2,500 this year and voted to end energy tax credits that were creating Ohio jobs and keeping electricity prices down — all so he could protect tax breaks for billionaires.
Kristina Knickerbocker has spent her career fighting for the very patients Mike Turner is selling out in Washington. As a working mom raising a family in OH-10, she knows firsthand what skyrocketing costs mean for working families — and in Congress, she will fight to lower costs and finally make health care affordable for the Ohioans Mike Turner has spent 30 years abandoning.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Roll Call: Democrats see opportunity in Ohio beyond battleground House seats [Roll Call, 1/27/26]
“In a Dayton-area district, nurse practitioner and Air Force veteran Kristina Knickerbocker is highlighting her health care experience and military background as keys to bridging the partisan divide.”
Spectrum News: Democrats eye several Republican-held Ohio districts to flip in November [Spectrum News, 3/18/26]
“Democrats have several reasons to feel optimistic about this November’s elections. […] President Donald Trump’s net approval rating in Ohio is -14.6 percentage points, according to polls conducted by the Economist.
“A new poll of voters in Ohio’s 10 district, represented by Mike Turner, found that 45% of voters said they would vote for a Democrat over a Republican. The poll, which was funded by a Democratic super PAC, found that Turner has an approval rating of 39%, suggesting some political headwinds for the 12-term incumbent.”
Dayton Daily News: Dayton residents decry Medicaid, SNAP cuts [Dayton Daily News, 4/17/26]
“‘We all want our families to have a good life and we put (U.S. Representative) Mike Turner in office thinking that he would provide the votes that we needed to get the things that we needed.’
“The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump last year, is estimated to cut $1 trillion over the next decade from the Medicaid program, and billions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Turner was among Ohio’s federal lawmakers who voted in favor of the federal spending package.”
Politico: GOP congressman spent $70K in campaign cash on meals [Politico, 9/8/20]
Dayton Daily News: Turner defends war with Iran despite low approval ratings [Dayton Daily News, 4/12/26]
“A CBS News poll taken as the conflict drags on shows 64% of Americans disapprove of the war and 62% say the president lacks a clear plan, numbers that mirror public confusion over his shifting statements about the Strait of Hormuz.
“Turner, who is running for reelection this year, acknowledged the political headwinds but insisted the stakes in the region outweigh the short-term domestic pitfalls, including higher gas prices.”
HuffPost: GOP Congressman Dances Around Answering Whether Trump Supports Russia Or Ukraine [HuffPost, 12/28/25]
MeidasTouch: GOP Congressman Slapped with Community Note [MeidasTouch, 04/15/26]
“Mike Turner argued voters are willing to pay more at the pump. His statement frames the debate as a trade-off, suggesting any easing of pressure on Iran could accelerate its nuclear ambitions.
“But the post also triggered a Community Note pointing to a June 2025 White House claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “obliterated,” raising questions about whether that threat still exists in the way Turner describes.”
PATH TO VICTORY
Voters in OH-10 have seen Mike Turner lose his way and are ready for a change — and Kristina Knickerbocker is uniquely built to deliver it. A U.S. Air Force veteran who served a decade at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and an oncology nurse practitioner who has spent her career caring for the people of Southwest Ohio, Kristina has built her life around service in a district where service means everything.
OH-10 voters have already shown they are open to voting for members of both parties for the right candidate. Even in a difficult 2024 cycle, Democrats’ House vote share across the district ticked up by 2 points, following a proven history of support for leaders like Senator Sherrod Brown, who carried the district by over 4 points in 2018 and won Montgomery County again in 2024.
In an environment where voters across the political spectrum are souring on Republicans’ toxic agenda to rip away health care and raise costs, Mike Turner’s record of casting the deciding vote on the Big, Ugly Bill and pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the health care industry is exactly why OH-10 voters are ready to reject him.
Mike Turner’s time in Washington is up. OH-10 voters are ready to turn the page — and they are ready to send a veteran, a nurse, and a true public servant to Congress in his place. This November, they will do exactly that.
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