Democrats see openings in Ohio races for Senate, governor

Competitive races for governor and Senate in Ohio could give Democrats rare openings in the red state once seen as a critical bellwether.

Two major election handicappers shifted the governor’s race more toward Democrats this month, citing surveys that have shown a formidible campaign from Democrat Amy Acton and baggage around her rival, Republican former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Meanwhile, Democrats have also seen signs of a close contest in the Ohio Senate race, where former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) has lodged a comeback bid against incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R), signaling the Buckeye State could be in play for Democrats in the fight for control of Congress.

“I think it’s playing out in Ohio as it plays out across the country. … You have a very unpopular president, you have a vice president who’s from Ohio who, I don’t think, could get elected today to anything. So I think there is a lot of momentum,” said Ohio Democratic strategist Jeff Rusnak, pointing to President Trump’s poor polling numbers and Democrats’ winning streak, which has rattled some Republicans ahead of the midterms.

This month, both Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted the Ohio governor’s race from “likely” to “lean” Republican, a notable change in a state that’s voted red in the last four gubernatorial elections. That’s a step away from “toss up.”

Term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has endorsed Ramaswamy — a biotech entrepreneur and former co-leader at Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — as have Trump and Vice President Vance, who represented Ohio in the Senate before heading to the White House. Ramaswamy has also outraised his rivals in what’s set to be the most expensive governor’s race in state history.

But Acton, a former Ohio health director who worked with DeWine during the COVID-19 pandemic, has made the race highly competitive just more than a month out from the primary elections. Acton does not have a primary challenger, and Ramaswamy does not have a serious primary threat.

Prognosticators have pointed to Ramaswamy’s lack of elected experience and his provocative approach to campaigning. They’ve also raised concerns that the anti-immigration focus among Ohio Republicans could prevent some voters from rallying behind Ramaswamy, a first-generation American.

In a polling average of the race from Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), Acton has now overtaken Ramaswamy with an approximate 1-point edge in a hypothetical general election match-up, with 46.5 percent support and to Ramaswamy’s 45.6 percent.

“Ohioans know that Amy Acton is the only candidate in this race who will put Ohio first,” Acton campaign manager Philip Stein said in a statement to The Hill on the recent rating changes.

A spokesperson for Ramaswamy’s campaign shrugged off the polls and predictions, stressing the Republican’s fundraising advantage.

“Endorsements from conservative leaders, union workers, farmers, and law enforcement keep rolling in, while liberal Amy Acton offers working families no real solutions. We’re confident voters will choose Vivek’s leadership over her cheap rhetoric,” the spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill.

Analysts also noted some polls have overestimated Ohio Democratic support in the past.

Ohio GOP consultant Matt Dole argued that the polls have so far reflected “the national mood,” which may ultimately be disconnected from state-level races like the one for governor.

“In Ohio, at least, there’s a disconnect between what happens at the federal level and what happens at the state level, historically. So I’m still pretty optimistic,” Dole said about Ramaswamy’s chances, though he acknowledged some Republicans in the state are more concerned.

“When you look at the history of statewide elections in Ohio, really going back 30 years, this model of midterm elections being redder even than presidential election year models — that is a serious headwind that [Acton] has to fight,” the GOP strategist added.

Just as Acton and Ramaswamy are considered the presumptive gubernatorial nominees in the May 5 primary, so too are Brown and Husted in the state’s high-profile Senate race. Husted doesn’t have a primary challenger, and Brown does not have a serious threat.

Last year, DeWine appointed Husted, then the lieutenant governor, to temporarily fill the vacancy left when Vance ascended to the vice presidency. November’s election is a special election to fill out the remainder of Vance’s term, which runs through 2028, and whoever wins this year’s contest would need to run again in 2028 to secure a full term.

A DDHQ polling average found the Senate race has narrowed over the past year, with Brown and the Trump-backed Husted now effectively tied at 46.8 percent support and 46.7 percent support, respectively.

Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both rate the race as “lean” Republican.

Brown, a major recruit for Democrats, is “the best possible candidate Democrats could have gotten,” Dole acknowledged. But he argued that the senator is “damaged goods” after he was ousted by 3.5 points against Sen. Bernie Moreno (R) in 2024.

On the other hand, Brown lost by single digits in a state that went to Trump by 11 points that year, noted David Jackson, a political science professor at Bowling Green State University.

“[That] means that [Brown] doesn’t need that much improvement in terms of the composition of the electorate, from a partisan standpoint, in order to pull this thing off,” Jackson said. “And he has the benefit, and Amy Acton has the benefit, that Donald Trump is not going to be on the ballot.”

Asked about the tight race and recent polling, Brown campaign manager Patrick Eisenhauer pointed to “soaring costs” hitting Ohioans, arguing Husted “has done nothing about it” in Washington, while voting in support of the Trump administration’s actions in the Middle East.

A Senate win in red Ohio could be critical to Democrats’ uphill battle to win back the Senate this fall.

Ohio was once considered a national bellwether, but the once-purple state has become increasingly red in the Trump era. It swung red in Trump’s first election in 2016, and has stayed there since.

“The last two cycles have been, in particular, not great for Democrats. … But I don’t think it was as bad as some made it out to be,” said Rusnak, a former Brown consultant who is not working in the race, pointing to the 2023 success of a measure enshrining abortion protections in Ohio as one example.

In this year’s midterms, “Ohio could recover some of its lost battleground patina,” DDHQ experts wrote in a memo on the Senate and governor’s races last week, assuming the primaries solidify the expected Brown-Husted and Acton-Ramaswamy showdowns to give Democrats pickup opportunities in the fall.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball also shifted two Ohio House races toward Democrats last week, moving Rep. Greg Landsman’s 1st Congressional District seat out of “toss-up” status to “lean” Democratic, while shifting Rep. Emilia Sykes’s 13th Congressional District seat from “lean” to “likely” Democratic.

“A state like Ohio that’s been trending away from being the quintessential swing state may, in 2026, be able to reclaim that status as a competitive state,” Jackson said.

“If Democrats in Ohio want the state to be perceived of as a competitive state again, 2026 is the election — with the governor’s race and the Senate race — that they have to win something, to prove that point, to make that case persuasive.”

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