# HBAC #144: OH-15 Congressional Democratic Primary Candidate Don Leonard

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hilliard-beacon-podcast-6738112/hbac-144-oh-15-congressional-democratic-primary-candidate-don-leonard
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hilliard-beacon-podcast-6738112/hbac-144-oh-15-congressional-democratic-primary-candidate-don-leonard.md
Podcast: [The Hilliard Beacon Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hilliard-beacon-podcast-6738112)
Published: 2026-03-06T16:10:31+00:00
Episode link: https://hilliardbeacon.substack.com/p/hbac-144-oh-15-congressional-democratic
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/190049573/0dfb53831c4f784a1b452400897627ed.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-hilliard-beacon-podcast-6738112/episodes/hbac-144-oh-15-congressional-democratic-primary-candidate-don-leonard
Duration seconds: 3345

## Resource

Editor- Just so readers are aware, we are reaching out to all candidates for the seat and offering equal time In a first for us, a Democratic primary challenger for Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, Don Leonard , joined the Hilliard Beacon Audio Companion for a wide-ranging discussion of economic inequality, foreign policy, and the motivations behind his campaign for Congress. Leonard, who taught on the city and regional planning faculty at Ohio State, framed his candidacy as emerging from years of research into governance and inequality. “I’m not a career politician. I’m not a lawyer or a lobbyist or anything like that,” Leonard said, describing a decade of academic work focused on why some political systems drift toward authoritarianism while others maintain stable democratic institutions. Leonard traced the intellectual roots of his campaign to the political shock of the 2016 election and the comparative research he had conducted across Latin America. Drawing on work in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, he argued that economic structure (particularly the strength of the middle class) plays a decisive role in the health of democratic systems. “The stronger your middle class, the less likely authoritarians are to succeed,” Leonard said, linking the rise of populist politics in the United States to growing inequality and decades of bipartisan economic consensus around trade and privatization. The candidate said his decision to move from research into electoral politics came more recently, citing what he views as escalating institutional pressures during the Trump era. Specifically, Leonard pointed to attacks on universities, immigration enforcement policies, and political rhetoric he believes threatens Constitutional norms in an ongoing way. He described a moment of…

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## Transcript

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