Ohio elections in 2026
17 electoral votes · 15 House seats · Midwest · 2 statewide races on the 2026 ballot
Ohio US Senate (special): D 48.0 to R 49.5, tossup Republican, well sourced. Jon Husted faces former senator Sherrod Brown in high-stakes Ohio special election
Ohio Governor: D 46.0 to R 50.0, lean Republican, well sourced. Ramaswamy and Acton trade blows in unique Ohio gubernatorial contest
House delegation as simulated: 5 D, 9 R, 1 tossup of 15 districts swept.
Model readings of live reporting, not polling. The full Ohio board, with sourcing and the county map where one exists, is on the Midterms 2026 tab of the homepage.
How Ohio votes
Ohio, long the archetypal bellwether, has trended Republican while retaining fierce competition in its statewide races. Manufacturing, energy and the fortunes of its mid-sized cities remain the spine of its politics.
Its largest population centers include Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo. Where a state's people live, and what those places do for a living, is the starting point for how Electorate HQ simulations reason about it.
On the ballot in Ohio
Election day is November 3, 2026. Ohio has 2 statewide races and 15 House seats on the ballot.
Statewide races
House districts
Every House seat is elected every two years. Each district below is listed with the counties inside it, computed from the current Census boundary files, wherever those files give a clean answer. Not sure which district is yours? Use the address lookup below.
- Ohio 1st district: Hamilton, Warren Counties
- Ohio 2nd district: Adams, Brown, Clermont, Clinton, Gallia, Highland, Hocking, Jackson and 7 more counties (15 in all)
- Ohio 3rd district: entirely within Franklin County
- Ohio 4th district: Allen, Ashland, Auglaize, Champaign, Delaware, Hardin, Logan, Marion and 4 more counties (12 in all)
- Ohio 5th district: Crawford, Hancock, Henry, Huron, Lorain, Mercer, Paulding, Putnam and 4 more counties (12 in all)
- Ohio 6th district: Belmont, Carroll, Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson, Mahoning, Monroe, Noble and 2 more counties (10 in all)
- Ohio 7th district: Medina, Wayne Counties
- Ohio 8th district: Butler, Darke, Preble Counties
- Ohio 9th district: Defiance, Erie, Fulton, Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky, Williams Counties
- Ohio 10th district: Clark, Greene, Montgomery Counties
- Ohio 11th district: Cuyahoga County
- Ohio 12th district: Athens, Coshocton, Fairfield, Guernsey, Holmes, Knox, Licking, Morgan and 2 more counties (10 in all)
- Ohio 13th district: Stark, Summit Counties
- Ohio 14th district: Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, Portage, Trumbull Counties
- Ohio 15th district: Fayette, Franklin, Madison, Miami Counties
Find your exact districts
Your address goes to the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoder to find your districts. It is not stored, and no AI sees it.
Which district am I in? Ohio districts by county
House districts follow population, not county lines, so a single county can hold several districts and a single district can span many. Each county is listed under the district that holds its center, so if your county appears once above, that district holds most of it and is probably yours. If it appears under several, or if you live near a district line, use the address lookup for the exact answer.
Before you vote in Ohio
Registration deadlines, early voting windows, mail ballot rules and identification requirements are all set at the state level and change between cycles, so the authoritative source is your own election office rather than any national site. The federal directory at vote.gov links to every state's registration system, and your county election office publishes the sample ballot that includes local contests.
The ballot section above covers the federal and statewide offices on the Ohio ballot for November 3, 2026. Each statewide race links to a page with current coverage and an AI-generated simulation of the contest, always labeled as a simulation rather than a poll.
Local races
Local councils and commissions, school boards, judges, sheriffs and municipal offices are also on many Ohio ballots, and they vary block by block. Your county election office publishes the authoritative local sample ballot.
Ohio's weight in Washington
Ohio carries 17 electoral votes, which ranks it 7 of 51 by that measure, and sends 15 voting members to the House.
That arithmetic is why the same national argument lands differently here than in a state of another size: a candidate courting Ohio is competing for a specific share of the map, and the issues below are the ones that share actually turns on.
How Ohio is represented
Ohio is divided into 15 House districts, each drawn to hold roughly the same number of people, while its two Senate seats represent the state as a whole. A campaign here therefore runs two different arguments at once: a local one shaped by whichever district a voter lives in, and a statewide one that has to hold together across all 15.
Electoral votes follow the same arithmetic, House seats plus two, which is why Ohio carries 17 in a presidential year and why small states carry proportionally more weight there than population alone would give them. The district list above shows every district on the 2026 ballot and the counties the boundary files place inside each one.
Issues that weigh heavily in Ohio
Based on the state's industry mix, geography and cost of living, these issues tend to carry structural weight in Ohio elections:
Latest Ohio political headlines
Governor DeWine Declares State of Emergency in Several Ohio CountiesArmed man charged toward Democratic candidate for Ohio governor at fair, law enforcement saysOhio’s 2026 governor race: Where the candidates stand on frackingOhio governor’s race is a battle over Covid, health costs, and trust in scienceOhio governor's race: Ramaswamy and Acton clash in rare Democratic pickup opportunityOhio Election 2026: Key Races and Historical Presidential Election ResultsNew poll shows Acton with slight lead in race to become governor of OhioOhio Chamber sues healthcare giant, accusing it of deceit, misinformationSimulate Ohio
In the Electorate HQ simulator, Ohio is one of 51 delegations that reads current reporting and decides a presidential race issue by issue. Results are AI simulations, clearly labeled, with the reasoning shown for every call. See the methodology for what that does and does not mean.
Analysis covering Ohio
Twenty-six states elect a senator and a governor on the same day in 2026
The overlap between the Senate class and the gubernatorial cohort is a coincidence of two unrelated calendars, and it decides where money goes.
The 2026 Senate map covers 62% of the country and 70% of the states
Thirty-five of fifty states vote for Senate this year. Weighted by people rather than states the share drops, and that gap is the design of the chamber.
Election night is reported in 3,142 counties and decided in 435 districts
The unit America counts votes in and the unit America allocates House seats in are different shapes, and they do not nest inside each other.