EMILYs List endorses Nan Whaley for Ohio Governor

For Immediate Release

June 16, 2021

EMILYs List Endorses Nan Whaley for Ohio Governor

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed Nan Whaley in the race for Ohio governor. This is EMILY's List’s first endorsed challenger at the gubernatorial level in the 2022 cycle. Emily Cain, executive director of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“EMILYs List is proud to endorse Nan Whaley for governor of Ohio. Nan has worked tirelessly to bring back economic opportunities and prosperity to her community. As mayor of Dayton, she has seen firsthand the struggles facing Ohio’s working families— including the opioid epidemic, broken education system, and factory closures— and she has dedicated her public service to solving those problems. Under Nan’s leadership, Dayton has turned a corner, and it is time for all of Ohio to experience that same positive change. Nan is ready to bring her experience, grit, and determination to Columbus.”

“With dangerous abortion restrictions moving through the Ohio legislature, it has never been more important to elect a Democratic pro-choice woman as governor of Ohio. We look forward to supporting Nan in the race for this critical governorship.”

Originally from a small town in Indiana, Nan learned the values of hard work and resilience from her father, a union autoworker who lost his job but never his dignity, and her mother, who worked at the laundromat behind their house to help make ends meet. Nan viewed Ohio as a place of opportunity, so she attended the University of Dayton, becoming the first person in her family to graduate from college. Nan fell in love with her adopted hometown and committed her career to serving it. First elected to the Dayton City Commission in 2005, Nan was the youngest woman ever chosen for a commission seat. Nan was elected as Dayton’s mayor by a double-digit majority in 2013 and has since worked tirelessly on behalf of her community’s women and children. EMILYs List first endorsed Nan during her 2013 run for mayor of Dayton. She was also a finalist for the 2014 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award, which celebrates extraordinary women serving in state or local office. Nan is EMILY's List’s first endorsed challenger at the gubernatorial level in the 2022 cycle.

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 157 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40 percent of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.