COLUMBUS — Months of campaigning are culminating in midterm elections that will decide control of Congress and governorships in Ohio and several other states.
Polling hours, locations and other election information here.
Voters in Ohio will decide races for governor, an open seat in the US Senate, and dozens of other contests for seats in the General Assembly and on judicial benches as well as local and state ballot issues.
Republicans will seek to retain their hold on every branch of state government this Election Day as Democrats look to a competitive U.S. Senate race as a possible pickup.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank La Rose says Ohio broke an all-time record for early voting in a statewide Gubernatorial General Election with 1.4 million Ohioans casting their ballot early in-person or by mail. The total number of early votes cast passed the previous record set in 2018 by 6 percent, La Rose
Polls are open from 6:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8 Voters who experience a problem on Election Day, have concerns about election misinformation/disinformation, or have general questions about the elections process should send an e-mail to Report@OhioSoS.gov or call 877-SOS-Ohio.
The top race has Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan facing Republican JD Vance for the chance to succeed the GOP’s Rob Portman, who’s retiring.
Ryan, a 10-term congressman from the blue-collar Mahoning Valley, has raised more than three and a half times the Donald Trump-endorsed Vance, a venture capitalist and author of the best-selling Hillbilly Elegy.
Vance has relied heavily on a cash infusion from Senate Republican leadership, while Ryan also has appealed to national Democrats to help him to the finish line.
Former President Donald Trump teased a third presidential run while headlining a rally for Vance in Vandalia Monday night. He told a cheering crowd that he’s “going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, Nov. 15, at Mar-a-Lago.” Trump said he didn’t want to “detract from the importance” of Election Day by making his own campaign announcement beforehand.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is going for a second term against Democrat Nan Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton.
Whaley has struggled to gain traction against the 75-year-old DeWine. Already well-known, DeWine became a household presence during months of daily briefings at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. More recently, he helped break ground on a huge new Intel computer chip facility.
Most of Ohio’s U.S. House seats under a legally disputed temporary map are considered safe for incumbents, including those of Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, a pro-Trump bulldog, and Democrat Joyce Beatty, who is seeking her sixth term in office. Republican Troy Balderson, seeking his third term, is opposed by Democrat Amy Rippel-Elton.
Two incumbents — Democrat Marcy Kaptur in Toledo, and Republican Steve Chabot in the Cincinnati area — are in tough races due to the new lines.
Ohio loses one seat in Congress this year due to lagging population growth.
The Ohio Supreme Court has declared both the new congressional map and new legislative maps unconstitutional due to partisan gerrymandering that favors Republicans.
That fight has been among issues to energize the race for an open chief justice position between Justices Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, and Sharon Kennedy, a Republican. Democrats view Brunner, a former secretary of state, as among their stronger pickup prospects in a former bellwether state that twice elected Trump by eight percentage points.
Party labels are being listed in Ohio judicial races for the first time this year.
In Columbus, unopposed Democrat Munira Abdullahi is poised to become the first Somali American and the first Muslim woman elected to the Ohio General Assembly, a historic moment for the state with the second-largest Somali population in the United States behind Minnesota.
Ohio voters also will be asked to decide to statewide ballot issues involving whether to prohibit noncitizen voting and whether judges should be required to consider a criminal suspect’s threat to public safety when setting bail.
Here’s a look at what to expect on Election Day:
Polls are open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m.
Once every polling location has been confirmed as closed, county boards of elections will begin the tabulation of election results and send the results of their tabulation to LaRose’s office by a secure fiber optic connection. No voting machines are connected to the internet, LaRose said.
Results are unofficial until the final official canvass is completed and the election is certified by LaRose’s office, required by law to be within 20 days of the election.
said.
ELECTION DAY Q & A
Q: WHAT’S CHANGED SINCE 2020?
A: LaRose used his executive power to limit secure ballot drop boxes to one per county, despite court challenges by Democrats in 2020 that clarified the elections chief may expand their number and location without legislative approval.
A sweeping package of election law changes addressing that and a host of other issues that arose in 2020 is stalled at the Ohio Statehouse, otherwise leaving most election laws as they were.
Q: WHAT HAPPENS IF THERE IS A LINE WHEN THE POLLING LOCATION CLOSES?
A: As long as a voter is in line when polls close, they must still be allowed to cast their ballot.
Q: WHAT HAPPENS AFTER TUESDAY?
A: The election team resumes its tabulation, reaching out to counties for reports of the ballots that were tabulated after election night. Any races left uncalled on Nov. 8 will be called, if possible, as additional votes come in.
Ohio routinely counts a little more than 2 percent of votes in the days after Election Day, which should only delay race calls in the closest races.
PARTING THOUGHT
Ohio backed Republican Donald Trump by wide margins in 2016 and 2020, and, during the intervening 2018 election, delivered a convincing statewide victory to Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of the most liberal members of Congress.
Watch this year’s Senate race results for clues to Ohio’s status as a swing state into the future and Democrats’ prospects in the Midwest in 2024.