COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat Fischer has bowed out of the race to unseat Justice Jennifer Brunner, keeping his pledge to drop out if the Ohio Republican Party didn’t endorse him .

“I ran because I felt I was the most likely to win,” Fischer told Cleveland.com. “Having finished first amongst all six [Supreme Court] candidates in 2022, I thought I was the best candidate. Obviously, they didn’t think so.”

At a meeting on Saturday , the party’s screening committee recommended Second District Court of Appeals Judge Ron Lewis for the endorsement.

Fischer, 67, had pursued an unprecedented strategy: leaving his own seat midterm to challenge Brunner — the last statewide elected Democrat in Ohio.

Some Republicans saw the move as an attempt to stretch his tenure beyond the

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