In the Ohio Senate primary, held ahead of the November special election to fill Vice-President J. D. Vance’s vacant seat, Jon Husted, the incumbent Republican, and Sherrod Brown, a former Democratic Ohio senator, are expected to easily win their respective races. Husted was appointed by Governor Mike DeWine to fill Vance’s seat in 2025, after serving as DeWine’s lieutenant governor for two consecutive terms.

Election 2026
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Brown, previously a three-term senator from Ohio who was defeated by Bernie Moreno, a Republican, in 2024, enjoys wide name recognition in Ohio, with a long-standing reputation as a populist Democrat. He is in a unique position of running for the same office he sought during President Trump’s first midterms, in 2018. That election was a successful showing for the Democrats, who regained control of the U.S. House and picked up seven seats in gubernatorial elections, following record-low approval ratings for Trump.

In the Ohio gubernatorial primaries, neither race is expected to be competitive. On the Republican side, Vivek Ramaswamy, a billionaire and former hedge-fund manager endorsed by Donald Trump, has been the clear frontrunner. Ramaswamy ran in the 2024 G.O.P. Presidential primary, but dropped out and backed Trump following a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucus. After the election, Ramaswamy was announced as the co-head of a new Department of Government Efficiency, alongside Elon Musk, but he never actually worked there, choosing instead to run for Ohio governor. Ramaswamy has suggested that, if he wins, he would abolish income tax, slash property taxes, end school summer vacation, and close some of the state’s public universities. Ramaswamy’s main challenger is Casey Putsch, an automobile designer who has never held elected office and is aligned with the Groyper movement. Recently, he has been criticized for saying positive things about Adolf Hitler and dubbing the race between him and Ramaswamy a battle of “Cowboys vs. Indians.”

In the Democratic primary, Amy Acton, the former director of the Ohio Department of Health, is running unopposed. She advised Governor DeWine on the state’s COVID-19 response, appearing next to him at his daily press conferences during the spring of 2020. After the pandemic, she worked at the Columbus Foundation, a philanthropic advisory group, and describes herself as “a doctor, not a politician.” Her pick for lieutenant governor is David Pepper, a lawyer and the former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party. Pepper is also a novelist, specializing in political thrillers, including “The People’s House,” the story of a political reporter who uncovers Russian interference in an Ohio congressional race.