Lesbian sheriff’s candidate uses sexual orientation as a selling point in powerful new political ad

Her new campaign ad begins with an image of her walking into the police restroom and finding the word “dyke” taped to the stall door. “I’ve never been an insider,” her voiceover says. “I wasn’t just a woman working in law enforcement. I was a gay woman — that made me a target, a threat.”

The ad then mentions how, during her 33-year career in law enforcement, she worked her way up the ranks to become the first female major in Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, how she took the county jail from the worst-ranked large jail in Ohio to the best in just three years, and how she was fired after speaking up about the use of excessive force, harassment and accountability in the police department under Neil’s leadership.

“I also know what it feels like to be targeted for who I am and not for something I’ve done, and there are systemic issues that we can no longer ignore,” she says as the ad shows footage of Black Lives Matters protestors demonstrating against systemic racism.

She then accuses her Republican opponent, Hoffbauer, of being unfit for the job because of his history of excessive force, his shooting and killing Walter E. Brown, an unarmed black man in 1990, and his serving on a police unit notorious for terrorizing communities of color.