COLUMBUS, Ohio – Tuesday’s election victory by Gov. John Kasich led a clean sweep of statewide offices for Republican incumbents.
EXTRA: Statewide results
It was so bad the head of Ohio’s Democratic Party announced he is stepping down as chairman in mid-December.
Jon Husted won re-election as secretary of state by topping Democratic state Sen. Nina Turner in one of the year’s most-spirited contests.
In one of the closest races, according to late polls, Josh Mandel defeated Democratic state Rep. Connie Pillich for a second term as Ohio’s treasurer.
Dave Yost has defeated Democrat John Patrick Carney to win a second term as Ohio’s state auditor. Yost had been seen as one of the year’s most vulnerable incumbents, after winning by a narrow margin four years ago.
He elevated the office’s profile during his four-year term through efforts to audit Republican Gov. John Kasich’s privatized job-creation office, JobsOhio, and through a statewide investigation of potential attendance tampering in Columbus and other public school districts across Ohio.
Mike DeWine has fought back a challenge by Cincinnati lawyer David Pepper to win a second term as Ohio’s attorney general. Pepper ran an aggressive campaign. He criticized DeWine for a host of actions. Those included awarding lucrative state business to the inexperienced firm of a friend, personally interfering in an internal sexual harassment investigation and delaying release of store video after a high-profile Wal-Mart shooting.
None of it stuck.
It was a tough night all around for Ohio Democratic Party chairman Chris Redfern. Along with watching his party’s slate of candidates go down in flames, the Democrat from Catawba Island in northern Ohio also was ousted from his Ohio House seat.
Redfern came under fire during the recent campaign after Democrat Ed FitzGerald’s campaign for governor collapsed under the weight of revelations about FitzGerald, including that he lacked a permanent driver’s license for more than a decade.
Republican Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith French has held onto her seat in one of the year’s toughest races. The former Tenth District Court of Appeals judge turned back a challenge from Democrat John P. O’Donnell, a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge. O’Donnell drew late criticism for breaking a clean campaign pledge with a negative TV ad.
French was returned to the bench along with fellow Republican incumbent Sharon Kennedy.