in the district, Hamilton, one he had never represented and which contained 57% of the Second District's registered voters. In the primary, Portman won only Hamilton County, but by a large enough margin to win the primary with 17,531 votes (35.61%), while McEwen received 14,542 (29.54%), Buchert 12,488 (25.37%), Dorsey 2,947 (5.99%), the rest scattering. The race in the Second District, one of the most Republican in the country, was determined in the primary — six times as many Republicans as Democrats voted in the primary — and Portman easily defeated attorney Lee Hornberger 53,020 (70.1%) to 22,652 (29.1%) in the special election on May 4. Following the primary, the Dayton Daily News criticized McEwen for having voters return absentee voter request forms to his campaign office rather than directly to the county boards of elections. The Daily News also said the "primary was completely about personalities, rather than issues." Returns to private life After his defeat, McEwen remained active in politics, but press accounts said he spent most of his time in the Washington, D.C., area residing in northern Virginia. Since 1997, he has been a partner with eleven other former Members of Congress in the Washington firm Advantage Associates, a lobbying and consulting firm. He founded FreedomQuest International, an international investment banking firm based in Washington, D.C. McEwen took to the lecture circuit, delivering speeches for $10,000 apiece. During the 2004 presidential election, McEwen traveled widely to speak for George W. Bush, focusing on Ohio. In 2006, he joined the law firm of Greenebaum, Doll, and McDonald as a consultant in its Cincinnati and Washington offices. As executive director of the Council for National Policy, McEwen was embroiled in controversy over inaction of alerting the Ohio Republican Party about Wes Goodman's sexual activities in 2015 before Goodman ran for office of the Ohio House of Representatives. Goodman resigned from his seat in November 2017 when allegations were made public. 2005 congressional run Days after President George W. Bush nominated Second District Congressman Rob Portman to be United States Trade Representative in March 2005, McEwen announced he would run for Portman's seat. He then moved from his home in Fairfax Station, Virginia and purchased a second residence, a condominium in Hamilton County's Anderson Township, east of Cincinnati. McEwen drew upon his connections and quickly had high-profile endorsements from Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, former United States Attorney