As we started doing candidate endorsement interviews last week, one thing struck me: Those I spoke with were blunt.

They were so blunt that it probably didn’t help them though it was refreshing after about three decades of talking to candidates who primarily said what they thought we wanted to hear or what they believed would get them elected.

While I participated in only a few endorsement interviews this time around, the conversations were much more interesting than they have been in the past.

While I ask a lot of questions during these interviews, I don’t vote on who gets the endorsements.

My first two endorsement interviews were with the candidates who are again running for the 6th Congressional District seat: Democrat Michael Kripchak and Republican Michael Rulli.

Rulli won the special June 11 election for the open seat by about 9.4% in a race that wasn’t expected to be even that close. Based on voting results in partisan statewide elections during the past decade, the district favors Republicans by 18%.

Republican Donald Trump won the district in the 2020 presidential race by 29% over Democrat Joe Biden.

The 6th Congressional District includes all of Mahoning, Columbiana, Carroll, Jefferson, Belmont, Harrison, Monroe, Noble and Washington counties and portions of Stark and Tuscarawas counties.

Turnout during the special election was very low. But turnout for the Nov. 5 general election is going to be significantly higher because the presidential candidates are on the ballot.

First up was Kripchak.

One of my first questions was would it be easier to beat Rulli in November after the lessons learned in the June election as well as the outcome. Of course, with Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket, it was going to be harder in November, but I was interested in Kripchak’s perspective.

“June was the easiest opportunity,” Kripchak said. “We always knew November would be more of an uphill struggle. With (Kamala) Harris and (Tim) Walz at the top of the ticket (instead of President Joe Biden) it really inverted a lot of things for our benefit.”

But Kripchak said, “I don’t like to sugarcoat things. It’s going to be a bigger struggle than it was in June.”

Based on the June showing, I asked Kripchak if he received any financial support from national Democrats.

“I got calls from others running in Ohio asking, ‘Hey, has the national party reached out with money?'” he said. “They haven’t. It’s disappointing because $10,000 would make a world of difference to my campaign.”

Kripchak said, “As far as the party’s concerned, they’ve been absent. It bothers me just because so many people say, ‘the Democratic Party left us,’ and I can’t disagree with them. It’s resulted in a lot of talk, but it has not resulted in funds. Welcome to politics, right?”

When we asked Rulli to make an opening remark, he said serving in Congress for the past four-plus months has been “a little overwhelming, but I’m thrilled for the challenge. I’m trying to figure out how I make the whole system work.”

Asked what he’s learned in nearly four months in the U.S. House, Rulli said it’s a lot different than the Ohio Senate, where he served for about five and half years, because Congress votes two to four times a day as compared to the state Senate that holds votes on Wednesday when it’s in session.

“It’s a very scattered approach to government,” he said of the U.S. House. “The learning curve to me has been a little overwhelming. It feels like when you’re on the floor, the 435 of us, it feels a little like the book, ‘The Lord of the Flies,’ meets like a John Hughes 1980s ‘Breakfast Club’ approach. You’ve got like 25 to 35 pods of Democrats and Republicans and independents that all hang out on the floor. I try to go to the different groups because I’m a policy guy. I try to make friendships on both sides of the aisles and see what types of bills I can do so it doesn’t get lost in the abyss, which is easy to do there.”

David Skolnick is a political writer for the Youngstown Vindicator and Warren Tribune-Chronicle, sister Ogden newspapers with the Columbiana Country newspapers. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.Contact David Skolnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.