Kathleen Clyde was born and raised in Garrettsville, Ohio, and earned her B.A. in English from Wesleyan University. After college, she worked for an organization fighting homelessness in Central Ohio, and then joined the John Kerry presidential campaign as the Ohio College Coordinator. Kathleen earned her J.D. from The Ohio State University College of Law, where she served as an editor of the law review and graduated as a public service fellow with the dean’s highest honors.
In 2010, she ran for office from her home in Portage County, winning a close election and going on to serve four two-year terms in the Ohio House of Representatives. She fought
for workers, organizing opposition and helping defeat anti- collective bargaining legislation for public sector workers on the statewide ballot in 2011. She fought for women, sponsoring the Ohio Equal Pay Act for three straight general assemblies and holding hearings on the unprecedented attacks on women’s reproductive healthcare. She also became known as a national expert on election and voting rights issues, helping mount legal defenses to various anti-voter measures eventually vetoed
In 2018, she was the Democratic nominee for Ohio Secretary of State, garnering over 2 million votes (47%) in her first run for statewide office. Kathleen was then appointed County Commissioner in Portage County in Northeast Ohio in late December 2018.