Candidates receive a moment of down time waiting for voters outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. Prosecutor Michael O'Malley, left, challenger Matthew Ahn, in blue on the right, and other candidates stand in the BOE parking lot.
Candidates receive a moment of down time waiting for voters outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. Prosecutor Michael O'Malley, left, challenger Matthew Ahn, in blue on the right, and other candidates stand in the BOE parking lot. Credit: Nick Castele / Signal Cleveland

With time running out before the March 19 primary, the two Democratic candidates for Cuyahoga County prosecutor are hustling to land a final round of hits on one another. 

Incumbent prosecutor Michael O’Malley, 60, is sticking with the uppercut that his opponent, 32-year-old former assistant law professor Matthew Ahn, lacks the experience to run an office of 400 people. 

In a new campaign ad, O’Malley tries to belittle Ahn’s experience. 

“Matthew Ahn says he’s ready to be prosecutor, but is he?” the ad’s narrator asks. The ad then cuts to Ahn’s recorded comments in front of the The Plain Dealer editorial board in which he struggles to define how many people he has managed as a boss. 

“Um … the um … largest team I have managed in my professional life is … um … let’s see … um … trying to think, I have managed a team of … um … six,” Ahn explains. 

The ad aired on the radio and ran for a couple of days on Facebook. The campaign says a new ad – one that also goes after Ahn – is now in rotation. O’Malley ordered at least $9,900 of time on iHeartRadio and Radio One stations in Cleveland, according to the latest available disclosures with the Federal Communications Commission. 

In his closing argument, Ahn adds a new move to his main punch that the prosecutor’s office needs criminal justice reform, particularly around how juvenile defendants are prosecuted. Now the first-time candidate is trying to taint O’Malley’s political loyalty by highlighting the sizable donations O’Malley has received from Republicans. The donors include Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, restaurant and billboard owner Tony George, and former Park-Ohio CEO Edward Crawford. Each gave $10,000 to O’Malley’s campaign committee this year. 

It’s hardly the first time these Republicans have written checks to a Democratic politician in Cuyahoga County, where Democrats usually run the show. (Crawford, who was President Donald Trump’s U.S. ambassador to Ireland, backed Dennis Kucinich in the 2021 Cleveland mayor’s race and lent his name to an “Irish blessing” campaign mailer.)

But the donations gave Ahn an opening in this Democrat-on-Democrat faceoff. In a piece of campaign literature headlined, “O’Malley: Funded by MAGA,” Ahn pointed out the donors’ contributions to other big-name Ohio Republicans such as J.D. Vance, Bernie Moreno and Max Miller. 

For his part, O’Malley and allies have knocked Ahn for receiving money from out of state. 

Meanwhile, the Working Families Party is throwing some final-hour support to Ahn. The progressive minor party produced pro-Ahn campaign mailers and a digital ad promising that Ahn will “change the way justice works in Cuyahoga County and keep us safe.”

Any summary of last-minute campaigning would be incomplete without a check-in on early voting at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. There, supporters of both candidates have been making their case to voters heading into the building. 

The pro-O’Malley contingent included prosecutors who work in his office, according to a pro-Ahn tipster posted outside the BOE. A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office acknowledged to Signal Cleveland that employees were supporting their boss but said staff had to abide by the office’s rules on political activity. Those rules allow unclassified employees to volunteer for campaigns, but only on their own time.  

Government Reporter
I follow how decisions made at Cleveland City Hall and Cuyahoga County headquarters ripple into the neighborhoods. I keep an eye on the power brokers and political organizers who shape our government. I am a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and have covered politics and government in Northeast Ohio since 2012.

Signal Statewide Bureau Chief/Editor-At-Large
I assist a team of storytellers as they pursue original enterprise and investigative stories that capture untold narratives about people and policies. I use my decades of experience in print, digital and broadcast media to help Signal staff build skills to present stories in useful and interesting ways.