Democrats’ gubernatorial slate consists of Dr. Amy Acton, of Bexley, once Ohio’s state Health director, for governor, with ex-Democratic State Chair David Pepper, of Cincinnati, for lieutenant governor.
And former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, of Bexley, age 73, unseated in 2024 by Republican now-Sen. Bernie Moreno, of Westlake, wants back in the Senate. Brown’s targeting a seat held by appointed Sen. Jon Husted, an Upper Arlington Republican, 58, once of Kettering, a University of Dayton graduate.
- Gov. Mike DeWine gave Husted, his lieutenant governor, the Senate seat after then-Sen. J.D. Vance, of Cincinnati, quit to become vice president. Result: The Brown-Husted race is for a ± two-year (late 2026 through 2028) stint, the remains of Vance’s term.
- Two Democrats are vying for their party’s nod for secretary of state, Ohio’s chief election officer, to succeed lame-duck Upper Arlington Republican Frank LaRose. The job is critically important because it oversees elections.
The Democrats running for the secretarial nomination are ex-House Minority Leader Allison Russo, of Upper Arlington, and a suburban Cincinnati physician, Dr. Bryan Hambley, of Loveland, 41.
Hambley has led an energetic statewide grassroots campaign for secretary since early in 2025. He’s an oncologist who earned a Notre Dame undergraduate degree and, at Tulane, a master’s in public health as well as his medical degree.
Russo, too, has higher ed cred: She earned a microbiology degree at Mississippi University for Women; a public health master’s at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; and a health-policy Ph.D. at George Washington University.
The GOP candidate for secretary of state will be now-Treasurer Robert Sprague, a Findlay Republican, a former legislator with a Duke engineering degree and Chapel Hill MBA.
- For attorney general, Democratic Upper Arlington City Council member John J. Kulewicz, a Yale law grad and retired Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease partner, will face Republican Auditor Keith Faber, of Celina, an Ohio State law grad who was state Senate president. A second Democrat seeking to oppose Faber is former state Rep. Elliot Forhan, a Greater Clevelander.
- Democratic Maple Heights Mayor Annette Blackwell, a graduate of Ursuline College, is seeking Democrats’ nomination for state auditor. Blackwell is of African-American heritage. The Republican seeking to become auditor: Upper Arlington’s LaRose.
- Cincinnati City Council member Seth Walsh, a Xavier University grad who was president of its student body, is running for state treasurer, while three Republicans want that nomination: Dayton-area ex-state legislator Niraj Antani, an Ohio State grad; former Rep. Jay Edwards, of Athens County, an Ohio U grad, once chair of the Ohio House’s budget-writing Finance Committee; and Sen. Kristina Roegner, of Hudson, who earned a Tufts engineering degree and an MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s famed Wharton School.
Ohioans will also be asked to nominate U.S. House candidates and decide Ohio Supreme Court primary races for a tribunal, now 6-to-1 GOP, whose philosophy seems to be ROPD (roll over and play dead).
Both parties face decent odds for Campaign ’26; Ohio’s dominant GOP might actually have to work to win but still could falter – if Donald Trump sends Americans to fight glacier to glacier in Greenland, or street to street in Havana. The president says he won’t. But he says a lot of things.
Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University. tsuddes@gmail.com.