Nina Turner

Nina Hudson Turner ( Hudson; born December 7, 1967) is an American politician and television personality.

Turner graduated from Cleveland's John F. Kennedy High School in 1986.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and a Master of Arts degree from Cleveland State University.

She has an Associate in Arts degree from Cuyahoga Community College where she is now a tenured assistant professor of history.

Her mother worked as a preacher and as a nurse's aide in a senior home, struggled with high blood pressure all her life and died in 1992 at the age of 42.

She began her professional career as an aide in 2001 to then-state Senator Rhine McLin.

Turner worked for Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White.

She later lobbied for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District at the state and federal levels.

Turner made a run for Cleveland City Council in 2001, but was defeated by the incumbent, Joe Jones.

In November 2004, Jones resigned his City Council seat.

His wife, Tonya Jones, was the top vote-getter in a September nine-way, non-partisan primary race to select a candidate to fill Jones' seat.

In the November 2005 election, Turner defeated Tonya Jones to become the Council Member for Ward One, the first African American woman in the seat.

A member of the Democratic Party, she was a Cleveland City Council member from 2006 to 2008 and a member of the Ohio Senate from 2008 until 2014.

Turner served on Cleveland City Council from 2006 to 2008.

In September 2008, Senator Lance Mason resigned his 25th District seat in the Ohio Senate to accept an appointment to the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.

Turner was unanimously selected by the Ohio Senate Democratic caucus to serve the remainder of Mason's four-year Senate term.

She resigned her City Council seat to accept the appointment on September 15, 2008.

Turner won a full term in 2010, running unopposed in the general election.

In the 128th General Assembly, Turner was the Ranking Minority member on the Senate Highways & Transportation and Judiciary Criminal Justice Committees.

She was elected as Minority Whip halfway through the 129th General Assembly.

She was Minority Whip in the following General Assembly.

By then her district consisted of the eastern side of Cuyahoga County as well as half of Lake County (including the Village of Fairport Harbor, the Village of Grand River, the City of Painesville and parts of Painesville Township; but excluding the City of Kirtland, the Village of Kirtland Hills, the Village of Waite Hill, the City of Willoughby Hills and most of the City of Mentor).

Turner considered running against incumbent Marcia Fudge in the 2012 Democratic primary for Ohio's 11th congressional district but declined, opting to stay in the State Senate.

As a political statement against legislation attempting to restrict women's access to contraception and abortion, in March 2012, Turner introduced a bill to regulate men's reproductive health.

Before getting a prescription for erectile dysfunction drugs, a man would have to get a notarized affidavit signed by a recent sexual partner affirming his impotency, consult with a sex therapist and receive a cardiac stress test.

She said the proposed statute would be parallel to recent legislation written by male legislators restricting women's reproductive health and that she was equally concerned about men's reproductive health.

The proposed legislation was not meant to be passed, but as a way of bringing attention to similar bills targeted towards women.

Turner was the Democratic nominee for Ohio Secretary of State in 2014, but lost in the general election against incumbent Jon Husted, receiving 35.5 percent of the vote.

A self-described democratic socialist, her politics have been variously described as progressive, left-wing, or far-left.

In January 2014, Turner led unsuccessful efforts to change Ohio's rape custody law.

It permits visitation and custody by men who father children via rape or sexual assault against a woman or girl.

Turner wanted to protect rape victims/survivors and children conceived as a result of rape by preventing parental custody rights from being provided to rapists who fathered their children.

She said it may be difficult for people to contemplate that a person would desire parental rights for a child conceived due to rape, though it occurs.

Turner supported Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential campaign, and became president of the Sanders-affiliated group Our Revolution in 2017.

She served as a national co-chair of Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign.

Turner ran in the Democratic primary for 2021 special election for Ohio's 11th congressional district, and conceded the race after losing to Shontel Brown by a margin of 5.66% of the vote.

Turner unsuccessfully challenged Brown for the seat again in 2022, garnering 33.5% of the vote to Brown's 66.5% in the Democratic primary.

Turner is a native of Cleveland, Ohio.

She was born Nina Hudson, to parents, Faye and Taalib, the first of seven children.

Her father and mother separated by the time Turner was five years old.