TIFFIN, Ohio — On Friday, state Rep. Gary Click deleted a Facebook post accusing three named Democrats of funding his primary opponent and replaced it with a correction. The claim was “made in error,” he wrote. It was the first time this cycle the Vickery Republican has publicly retracted anything.
It was not the first time a Click claim collapsed under a document.
Since February, five separate public claims by Click — a fundamentalist Baptist preacher and former community theater actor who quietly stepped down from his church in 2025 — have been contradicted by records or disputed on the record by the person or organization they described. The contradicting evidence in each case was ordinary and checkable: a church website, an internet archive snapshot, a nonprofit board’s own calendar, a councilman’s statement, the state’s campaign finance database.
What connects them is not the claims. It is what happens next. In four of the five, Click disputed the reporting, reframed it, or left the post standing. Friday was the exception — and even then, the correction named none of the three people the original post named.
February: the church website
TiffinOhio.net reported on Monday, Feb. 16, that Click had stepped down as pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple in 2025, a role he had held for 19 years, with no public announcement identified. At the time of publication the church’s website still listed him in active leadership.
Click disputed the report on social media within hours, then gave an interview to a local newspaper days later. The church website was updated only after the story ran.
His own official Ohio House biography stated that he “served through 2025” and had “recently stepped down and assumed the honorary title of pastor Emeritus.”
March: the League of Women Voters calendar
Click did not attend the League of Women Voters of the Tiffin Area candidates night on Wednesday, March 18. Afterward he wrote on Facebook that the organization had “boxed me and others out” by scheduling the forum on a day the Ohio House was in session. He described the event as something that “resembled what it would look like if the Democrat blog Tiffin dot net had a podcast.”
“Fake News with a dash of rumors and liberal, unverified Click bashing all day long,” he wrote. “Voters are smarter than that.”
The League’s board answered with a timeline. The event had been scheduled in the summer of 2025. Click was invited by email and did not respond. He was personally re-invited at a public event on Feb. 21. He was notified on March 9 that both of his opponents had confirmed. He did not respond until the morning of the forum, to say he would not attend.
The board also said Click had misdescribed a redistricting lawsuit, noting it was brought by the state League chapter against the state government rather than against the Republican Party, and that the Tiffin chapter had no part in it.
April: the archive snapshots
TiffinOhio.net reported on Monday, April 13, that Click’s name had been removed from Vivek Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial endorsements page. Web Archive snapshots showed his name present on Feb. 20 and gone by April 11. Roughly two hours after publication, it reappeared.
Click responded by posting a screenshot of himself back on the page and telling followers that “rumors that I have been removed from a list of endorsements Vivek Ramaswamy are greatly exaggerated” — a paraphrase of a line commonly attributed to Mark Twain, with a grinning emoji.
He did not address the archive snapshots, say who had removed his name, or say who had restored it.
July: the councilman
On Friday, July 3, Click’s campaign page posted a photo of two men in matching shirts reading “America 250” and “Gary Click / State Rep.” The caption: “I am honored to have the support of Tiffin City Councilman Kevin Roessner.”
Roessner, who represents Tiffin’s 3rd Ward, chairs the Finance Committee and is listed among the county’s elected officials by the Seneca County Republican Party, said he had not endorsed anyone — and that the shirt had come from the campaign.
“My goal was simply to participate in the historic 250th celebration alongside fellow community leaders, not to campaign—the shirt was offered solely for the event from a patriotic perspective,” Roessner told TiffinOhio.net. He said he would “continue to keep my voting choices personal.”
Roessner did not dispute that he appeared in the photo or wore the shirt, and the caption used the word “support” rather than “endorsement.” He reshared the post three days later with text that mentioned the anniversary celebration and made no reference to Click, the House race or endorsements.
The campaign post stood unedited for three weeks.
August: the filings
Click’s post last week asked followers to speculate about why Seneca County Democratic Party Chair Gina Grandillo, his Democratic opponent Aaron Jones and Fremont City Councilwoman Angie Ruiz “would have donated to my primary opponent.” Sharing it from his personal account, he added: “But D’s TOLD us that they were crossing over and now we know that they donated too.”
Eric Watson’s campaign finance filings show 104 contributions totaling $17,488.05. None came from Grandillo, Jones or Ruiz. Click’s own filings do not show them either. All three denied the claim.
The post came down. In its place:
“Correction: Because I do believe in a campaign based on facts rather than fiction, I will say that my prior post was made in error. However, my error was not inconsistent with posts such as this made during the primary. Nevertheless, if I make a mistake, I will admit it. The opposition, however, has been consistent with intentional misinformation, which I routinely ignore. That’s fine. I will not lower myself to that standard. I look forward to serving one more term in the House.”
Click attached a screenshot to the correction showing a genuine public post urging Democrats and independents to request Republican ballots in the May primary. That screenshot supports the crossover half of his original claim. It does not address the donation half, which is the part he retracted.
What isn’t on this list
Two frequently cited disputes are excluded here, for different reasons.
In April, Click accused Ohio Gun Owners executive director Chris Dorr of altering survey answers and of stalking female legislators in a parking garage. Dorr denied each allegation in a 28-minute video. TiffinOhio.net was unable to independently verify either Click’s allegations or Dorr’s denials, and an unresolved dispute is not evidence of anything.
Separately, less than a day after telling voters he wanted to “turn down the rhetoric” and that they would not see him “posting about” his opponents, Click returned to Facebook to brand Watson “the Arizona Kid.” Watson’s family has been in Seneca County since 1832; Click moved to Ohio from Indiana in 2006. That is a contradiction between what a candidate said he would do and what he did, which is a different thing from a claim a record disproves.
The pattern of deletion, though, recurs. On primary day in May, Click deleted a Facebook attack on state Rep. Jay Edwards over Edwards’ ties to convicted former Speaker Larry Householder. Click’s own 2019 campaign had paid for a Facebook ad defending House Bill 6, the nuclear bailout at the center of the $60 million bribery scheme Householder is serving 20 years for running.
The record voters have
A politician who gets something wrong and fixes it is doing what the job requires. Friday’s correction is the closest Click has come to that this year, and it is worth saying plainly that he made it voluntarily and quickly.
But the correction named no one. Grandillo, Jones and Ruiz were named in the accusation and are absent from the retraction, and none was offered an apology. The same post that admitted error accused “the opposition” of “intentional misinformation,” without an example.
In the other four cases, the record was corrected by someone else — a church updating its website, a nonprofit board publishing a timeline, an archive service that keeps snapshots whether or not anyone wants them, a councilman answering a reporter’s email.
Click survived his May primary by fewer than 600 votes and lost Seneca County to Watson, who has since declined to endorse him. He faces Jones, a Tiffin city councilman, Army veteran and manufacturing supervisor, on Tuesday, Nov. 3, in what would be his final term under Ohio’s term limits.
Voters in Seneca and Sandusky counties will decide what the past six months are worth. The documents are public.
