Josh Williams removes Rodney Creech from endorsements as toxicity spreads

Ohio congressional candidate Josh Williams has quietly removed state Rep. Rodney Creech from his campaign’s endorsements page — making Williams the second Republican candidate in a week to scrub Creech’s name from their website after TiffinOhio.net reporting.

Creech, who was accused by a minor female relative of climbing into bed with her while erect and wearing only his underwear according to Bureau of Criminal Investigation documents, no longer appears on Williams’ endorsements page at joshwilliamsforohio.com. Google’s cached index of the page still shows Creech listed among Williams’ Ohio House endorsers — confirming his name was there recently and has since been removed.

Williams’ campaign made no public announcement about the change.

The removal follows a pattern. Last week, Vivek Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial campaign removed both Creech and state Rep. Gary Click from vivekforohio.com/endorsements/ within two days of TiffinOhio.net publishing reports on Creech’s BCI investigation and resurfaced video of Click reminiscing about talking to “young girls” about their sexual experiences during Ohio House testimony. Web Archive snapshots confirmed that removal.

Click stays

While Creech has been scrubbed from Williams’ endorsements page, Click remains listed — identified as “Rep. Gary Click, House District 88.”

Click formally endorsed Williams’ congressional campaign in August 2025, two years after Williams’ sexually explicit Facebook posts were first publicly reported by D.J. Byrnes of The Rooster, an independently owned Ohio political media outlet. The two have co-sponsored multiple pieces of legislation in the Ohio House, including HB 693, which would write the concept of “parental alienation” into state law — the same term Creech used to publicly dismiss his own daughter’s statements about the alleged misconduct.

Click told the Ohio House Public Health Policy Committee in 2023 that “young girls” had described to him how painful it was to have sex — testimony delivered while advocating for House Bill 68, which bans gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Click has never identified who these young girls were or in what capacity he — a former Baptist pastor — was discussing sex with minors.

Toxic endorsements

Three weeks before the May 5 primary, Creech and Click are rapidly becoming two of the most toxic endorsements in Ohio Republican politics.

Ramaswamy removed Creech. Williams has now removed Creech. On the Ramaswamy front, Click was also removed — then scrambled back onto the page within hours of TiffinOhio.net documenting the change, posting on Facebook that “rumors that I have been removed from a list of endorsements Vivek Ramaswamy are greatly exaggerated.” Web Archive snapshots confirmed the removal had occurred.

Sen. Jon Husted’s campaign has also drawn scrutiny for promoting endorsements from both lawmakers on a March 19 endorsement graphic. Click serves as Husted’s Sandusky County campaign chair.

Creech was stripped of all four committee assignments and asked to resign by House Speaker Matt Huffman in May 2025 after the allegations became public. He refused. In February 2026, Huffman reversed course — reinstating Creech to his committees and signing a letter requesting the Ohio Republican Party endorse him for re-election. The party obliged. Creech is seeking re-election in House District 40, where he faces former state Rep. J. Todd Smith and Lew Lainhart in the Republican primary.

A special prosecutor who reviewed the BCI investigation into Creech declined to file charges but described Creech’s conduct as “concerning and suspicious.”

The OH-9 primary

Williams is competing in a crowded Republican primary for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District. The seat is held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in congressional history, who narrowly defeated former state Rep. Derek Merrin by roughly 2,300 votes in 2024. Merrin is running again.

Williams has faced his own scrutiny during the campaign. TiffinOhio.net reported that Williams posted sexually explicit and degrading content about women on his public Facebook page before sponsoring bills he said would protect children from obscenity. When confronted about the posts in 2023, Williams refused to apologize: “What do I gotta apologize about? I made the post in 2018 being funny while I was in college burning time.” He was approximately 34 years old at the time.

The Republican primary is May 5.

TiffinOhio.net has reached out to the Williams campaign for comment on the removal of Creech’s endorsement. This article will be updated if a response is received.