Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Maha lowdown. I'm Jeff Lauderback.

And Secretary of State races at the state level across the United States have really caught momentum, especially

since 2020. And here we are in 2026. And the Ohio Secretary of State race is shaping up to be

probably the most competitive Republican primary. And my guest today is Marcel Sturvich, who is running for Secretary of State,

and he's running against Robert Sprague. Welcome to the show, Marcel.

Hey, it's great to be with Maha Lowdown crew, and thanks for having me, Jeff.

And we talked, spent about a week or two ago. I'm writing a general feature for the Epic Times on this Secretary of State race. And we had a really in-depth conversation that I really enjoyed because you're, I joked around that you know the secretary of state, the, the ends and outs of the issues, kind of like I know baseball stats.

So before we go into details about some of the issues, for those of our listeners who aren't

familiar with you, could you tell us a little bit about your background

and what led you to run for Secretary of State?

Yeah, sure.

You know, I was born and raised to first generation,

Croatian American parents immigrated to the United States, 1970.

We had a family restaurant business, 50-style diner

on the northwest side of Chicago,

and I grew up as the youngest of three

working in that restaurant business with my folks. Got a chance to interact with people from all

different backgrounds, just a unique childhood, if you will. I traveled back and forth to go

to Europe, and I got a chance to get experience in worldly very early in my life. When 9-11

happened, I was about

19 years old, 20-ish, and I made a call to go in, become an active duty officer in the Air Force.

And I wanted to address what I saw was a clear-cut threat to this country, an ideology

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