Don Leonard supports the Bernie Sanders-backed Working Families Party and pushed for a socialist ‘counter-movement’ in an academic paper
The Democratic nominee running in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, Don Leonard, says he’s not a democratic socialist but would “lie to the people of my district” to “get their votes” if he were. Leonard, a former Ohio State University professor, has supported the Bernie Sanders-backed Working Families Party (WFP) and wrote in an academic paper that the best outcome for the United States is a socialist “counter-movement.”
“I am not a democratic socialist. Even if I were, I’d lie to the people of my district in order to get their votes,” Leonard said with a laugh on the Hilliard Beacon Podcast in March before praising Sanders. It was at least the second time he commended the Vermont senator while denying being a democratic socialist.
Yet Leonard, who was an Ohio State professor of city and regional planning until he resigned in January, has repeatedly shown a penchant for socialism. In December, he donated $100 to the WFP, campaign finance records show. That same month, he praised the group’s call to tax billionaires to bankroll government programs that would provide “Health Care You Can Rely On,” “Child Care When and Where You Need It,” and “Time to Spend With Your Family.”
“Working Families Party is on point here. Making homes, health care, and child care more affordable would allow all of us to spend more time with our family,” Leonard wrote in a December Facebook post. “The one thing I would add is to provide support for family home care so that parents have the option to be with their children through the first year and retirees can afford to age in place.”
In February, he called the group’s rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, delivered by “Squad” member Rep. Summer Lee (D., Pa.), the “Best take on last night’s SOTU in my humble opinion.” Lee praised New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist endorsed by the WFP, and left-wing policies like Medicare for All.
Lee’s remarks are representative of the types of policies and candidates WFP has long supported. The group has also endorsed Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Melat Kiros, a House candidate running in Denver who said the Sept. 11 and Oct. 7 terrorist attacks were “inevitable.” Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, in 2016 called WFP the “closest thing there is to a political party that believes in my vision of democratic socialism.”
Leonard did not respond to a request for comment.
His support for democratic socialism is set to create a hurdle for him as he attempts to unseat GOP Rep. Mike Carey in a competitive swing district. The GOP holds a slight advantage there, while a poll by the House Majority PAC, the spending group aligned with House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), found Leonard trailing Carey by 5 percentage points.
Leonard has included his preference for democratic socialism in his academic work, as well. In August 2025, he authored a paper arguing that the United States was “backsliding” due to “populist political outsiders” seeking to “dismantle institutional constraints on executive power.” The country’s best path forward, he wrote, is a “Polanyian counter-movement towards a new social-democratic order,” a reference to the Hungarian socialist and economist Karl Polanyi.
Leonard questioned if there was “hope for US democracy” in the face of Trump’s America and hoped that, like how the “unfettered capitalism under nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century liberal economic orthodoxy triggered a Polanyian movement towards social democracy, perhaps the US is headed for a new New Deal moment.”
He referenced Polanyi’s book, The Great Transformation, which argues that self-regulated markets lead to social backlash. Polanyi pushed for a “guild-socialist-organized” form of socialism that included controls like labor protections and social insurance.
Elsewhere, Leonard has been tied to other left-wing movements. He has called to “replace ICE completely” and was arrested at a “No Kings” protest in March after he told police he was “disobeying” their instructions to step toward their vehicles after attempting to give a speech using a megaphone. He was cited for violating a noise ordinance and was charged with obstructing official business, a local NPR affiliate reported.
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