U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s 2026 Senate campaign has promoted endorsements from two Ohio House Republicans with documented records involving minors: State Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), who reminisced on video about talking to young girls about their sex lives during committee testimony, and state Rep. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria), who was accused of climbing into bed with a minor female relative while erect and wearing only his underwear, according to Bureau of Criminal Investigation documents.
Click is not just an endorser. He is listed as Husted’s Sandusky County campaign chair on a graphic the Husted campaign posted to X on Dec. 10, 2025, naming chairs in all 88 Ohio counties. Both Click and Creech appear on a separate endorsement graphic the campaign posted on March 19, 2026, listing endorsements from Ohio state representatives. The campaign reposted the graphic several hours later.
A special prosecutor who reviewed the Creech case declined to file charges but called Creech’s conduct “concerning and suspicious.” Creech admitted to state investigators he had gotten into bed with the minor in his underwear but denied the sexual nature of the allegations. He has called the accusations “demonstrably false.”
What Click said on video
During his sponsor testimony for House Bill 68 before the Ohio House Public Health Policy Committee on April 19, 2023, Click described in graphic detail what he said young girls had told him about their sexual experiences.
“Young girls who’ve gone through this have told me it is very, very painful to have sex because of the hormones and the hormone blockers that they have received,” Click told the committee, according to Ohio Channel video resurfaced by Ohio political journalist D.J. Byrnes of The Rooster.
Click went on to describe what he characterized as the physical effects of gender-affirming medical treatment on minors’ genitalia. “Even the hormone blockers and the puberty blockers damage the genitalia,” Click said. “Women suffer from vaginal atrophy in a very bad way.”
Click — a former Baptist pastor who quietly stepped down from Fremont Baptist Temple in 2025, a transition first reported by TiffinOhio.net — has never publicly identified who these “young girls” were, when the conversations took place, or in what capacity he was speaking with minors about their sexual experiences.
A 2022 leaked audio recording obtained by News 5 Cleveland and reported by the Ohio Capital Journal revealed that Click had never spoken with any member of the transgender community before introducing HB 454, the predecessor bill to HB 68.
A pattern of associations
Husted was appointed to the U.S. Senate in January 2025 by Gov. Mike DeWine to fill the seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance. He is running in a November 2026 special election to retain the seat and faces former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in what is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country.
Husted’s campaign has built one of the largest county-level campaign infrastructures in the state. The December 2025 graphic listed 112 county campaign chairs spanning all 88 Ohio counties.
But the names on those lists extend beyond Click and Creech. The endorsement graphic also includes Rep. Josh Williams (R-Oregon), who TiffinOhio.net reported posted sexually explicit and degrading content on Facebook before sponsoring bills he said would protect children from obscenity. Click endorsed Williams for the OH-9 GOP primary.
Separately, Husted has faced ongoing questions about more than $116,000 in campaign donations from Les Wexner, the L Brands founder whose ties to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have been widely reported. Husted voted against releasing the Epstein files.
Click is seeking what would be his final consecutive term in the Ohio House due to term limits. He faces Republican primary challenger Eric Watson, of Tiffin, in the May 5 primary. Democrat Aaron Jones, a Tiffin City Councilman and U.S. Army veteran, is running in the general election.
