Meet the Ohio Lobbyist Running Against Lobbyists

Mother Jones illustration; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Zuma

Former Ohio state Sen. Kevin Coughlin—a self-described “husband, father, [and] small business owner”—is running to be the Republican nominee for Ohio’s 13th Congressional District seat in the 2026 midterms. He promises to “put Ohio workers and their families first,” according to his campaign website. “Never politicians, lobbyists, or special interests.”

What Coughlin doesn’t say is that the “small business” he touts was, in fact, a lobbying firm. Indeed, for all his disparagement of lobbyists, Coughlin himself was registered as one in the state of Ohio from at least January 2012^[2] to December 2016^[3]. His clients ranged from companies in the health care industry—Dentaquest, Internal Medicine Specialists Inc., and Rocky Mountain Dental Association—to the National Real Estate Investors Association and Solar Planet.

Ohio’s 13th District, which includes the northeast Ohio area of Akron, is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes. Coughlin ran against Sykes for the same seat in 2024 and narrowly lost with 49 percent of the vote. In that race and the current one, Coughlin has repeatedly expressed his desire to confront the “swamp,” a metaphor for the massive wealthy corporations, industries, and their lobbyists who have outsized control of politics in Washington, DC. “I have a PROVEN record of standing up for what’s right for YOU, and it terrifies them,” he said^[4] in March 2024. “I’ve got news for the swamp: I’m not going anywhere!”

Coughlin faces one challenger, political outsider Margaret Briem, in the District 13 GOP primary. Sykes is uncontested for Democrats. In the likely event that Coughlin and Sykes face off again in November 2026, their rematch may result in an even narrower margin than that of 2024, as the majority-GOP legislature^[5] pushes to further gerrymander the state’s congressional districts^[6].

But if Coughlin is pitching himself in this potentially competitive matchup as the candidate best prepared to fight lobbyists and their corporate interests, it may be because he knows the profession from the inside.

Coughlin was appointed to the state Senate in 2001 and served until he was term-limited in 2010. He served as chair of the Health, Human Services, and Aging Committee and introduced multiple bills related to health care. One sought to prevent Ohio’s government from enforcing the federal Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate.

In August 2010, a couple of months before his term officially ended, Coughlin registered his new business, Lexington Strategic, with the state of Ohio. There, he would go on to lobby on behalf of multiple companies that had vested interests in Ohio health care and Medicaid policy—issues he worked closely on in the state Senate.

In 2013, for example, Coughlin lobbied^[7] on a bill that included a major provision to eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion in Ohio. The year before, he also lobbied over^[8] “Medicaid policy, small business regulation, [and] health care” issues to the governor, state attorney general, and others on behalf of a dental association.

His remit was not limited to health care. In 2014, Coughlin lobbied on behalf of the National Real Estate Investors Association in support of a bill that sought to make some landlords exempt from federal fair housing laws. Opponents of the legislation, which did not pass, were concerned that it would block tenants from pursuing legal action over unfair housing practices. The Marietta Times reported^[9] that the bill could have also taken Ohio out of compliance with federal fair housing guidelines, which may have cost the state more than $1 million in grants from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“HUD has strongly suggested that SB 349 would take Ohio’s fair housing laws out of the realm of being ‘substantially equivalent’ to the federal (Fair Housing Act),” wrote the then-director of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission in a letter^[10] the Marietta Times obtained.

Lexington Strategic was renamed^[11] Lexington Companies in 2012. Coughlin, the sole employee named on the company’s website, is still listed as president, though neither Coughlin nor the business have filed any lobbying forms in Ohio since 2017. The company currently markets itself as a provider of “public policy solutions” and “dental continuing education.”

And yet Coughlin, who did not return a request for comment, seems to be quite aware that politicians who bend to lobbyists may be politically vulnerable at the polls.

“It really comes back to the quality of the people that we elect and their mindset going in. If you’re a member of Congress and you allow the bureaucracy, you allow the staff, and you allow the lobbyists to run all over you, that’s on you,” he said^[12] on the conservative Steve Gruber Show in March. “You’re accountable, and the voters at the end of the day will have a say on you.”

District 13 voters will have an opportunity for their say on him in the state’s primary race on May 5, 2026.