2026 Election Tracker
Ohio Election Odds - 2026 Live Betting Odds & Voting History
Ohio 2026 election odds for Vivek Ramaswamy's open governor run, Jon Husted's Senate special after JD Vance, and the new 15-seat House map plus Ohio history.
| Electoral votes | 17 |
|---|---|
| 2024 presidential result | Trump 55% / Harris 44% (R+11 margin) |
| Current governor | Mike DeWine (R), term-limited |
| U.S. senators | Bernie Moreno (R, next 2028), Jon Husted (R, on 2026 special election ballot) |
| 2026 races on the ballot | Governor (open), U.S. Senate special, all 15 U.S. House seats under new map |
| Cook PVI | R+6 |
Ohio was once the most important swing state in the country. It is now one of the most reliably Republican states in the Midwest, having voted for Trump by 8 points in 2020 and 11 points in 2024. The 2026 cycle in Ohio is shaped almost entirely by JD Vance's elevation to the vice presidency in January 2025, which set off a cascade of consequences: Governor Mike DeWine appointed Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted to Vance's Senate seat, Husted abandoned his planned 2026 gubernatorial run, and Vivek Ramaswamy moved from the Department of Government Efficiency to the open Republican primary for governor. The state will hold both a gubernatorial election and a U.S. Senate special election on November 3, and the new GOP-drawn congressional map is expected to add another Republican seat to the House delegation. When looking at the Election Odds in Ohio on ElectionOdds.com, be sure to look at all races so you know who is favored when you go to the polls.
Is Ohio a Red State or a Blue State?
Ohio is a red state, after spending most of the 20th century as the country's most reliable presidential bellwether. Trump carried Ohio by 11.2 points in 2024, by 8 in 2020, and by 8.1 in 2016. The state has voted Republican in every presidential election since 2008 and is no longer considered a swing state. Cook PVI rates Ohio R+6. From 1964 through 2016, Ohio voted for the winner of every presidential election except 1960. That bellwether streak ended in 2020 and the state has continued to move further right since.
The downballot picture is now solidly Republican. Republicans hold the governorship (Mike DeWine, term-limited in January 2027), both U.S. Senate seats (JD Vance left his seat to become Vice President, replaced by Bernie Moreno; Sherrod Brown lost his 2024 reelection), both chambers of the state legislature, and the state Supreme Court. The 2024 defeat of Brown, the last statewide Democrat in Ohio, was the symbolic end of the state's swing-state era. Republicans now hold 10 of Ohio's 15 U.S. House seats, with the 2025 bipartisan commission redistricting expected to nudge that to 11-4.
Ohio's voting pattern is shaped by the urban-rural divide common across the industrial Midwest, but with rural shifts that have outpaced urban gains. Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) and Franklin County (Columbus) vote Democratic, but Cleveland's population has declined sharply over the past two decades while Columbus has grown more slowly than Sun Belt comparables. Hamilton County (Cincinnati) has shifted Democratic but not by enough to offset the swings in rural Ohio. The state's working-class white voters, particularly in Mahoning Valley (Youngstown) and Stark County (Canton), have moved decisively Republican since 2016.
The state's loss of bellwether status reflects a broader story about deindustrialization, the opioid crisis, and the realignment of working-class voters. Ohio gained 0 electoral votes in the 2020 reapportionment, dropping from 18 to 17, and is projected to lose another seat after 2030. The state's political weight in national elections has diminished alongside its swing-state status. Ohio has 17 electoral votes through 2030.
Will Ohio become competitive again? Probably not in the near term. The structural factors that pushed Ohio rightward, working-class realignment, slow urban growth, and the absence of large Latino or Asian American populations to drive demographic change, are still in place. Democrats have effectively stopped competing for the state at the presidential level. A return to competitiveness would require a national Democratic environment dramatically more favorable than 2024. For a full state-by-state comparison, see the red states vs. blue states map.
Ohio Governor Betting Odds
This is an open seat, Mike DeWine is term-limited after two terms, and the Republican primary on May 5, 2026 produced a decisive result. Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur and 2024 presidential candidate, won the primary with over 80% of the vote, having cleared what was expected to be a competitive field months earlier through Trump's endorsement and the Ohio Republican Party's official backing. State Attorney General Dave Yost and state Treasurer Robert Sprague both declined to run after evaluating Ramaswamy's strength, and former lieutenant governor Husted left the race entirely after DeWine appointed him to fill Vance's Senate seat in January 2025.
The Democratic nominee is Amy Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director who became a familiar figure during DeWine's daily COVID press conferences in 2020. Her brief return to public visibility, combined with the unique recognition factor from those briefings, made her the consensus Democratic choice, and she cleared the Democratic field early. Her general election challenge is significant: Democrats have not won an Ohio gubernatorial election since 2006, and Trump won the state by 11 points in 2024.
Prediction markets are pricing Ramaswamy as a strong favorite, with most race ratings landing in the "likely Republican" range. The Acton candidacy creates a real contrast, Ramaswamy as the disruptor running on DOGE-style government cuts, Acton as the public health authority running on protecting institutions, but the structural Republican advantage in Ohio is substantial. Find all of the Governors elections here.
Governor
Ohio Governor Election History
Ohio's governorship has been Republican-dominated in the modern era, with one Democratic interruption. Republican Bob Taft won in 1998 and 2002 but left office deeply unpopular after a gifts scandal, opening the door for Democrat Ted Strickland, who won in 2006 by 24 points. Strickland remains the last Democrat to win the office. Republican John Kasich unseated him in 2010 amid the recession, won re-election in 2014, and was followed by Mike DeWine, who won in 2018 and 2022.
With DeWine term-limited, 2026 is an open race, and the Republican primary was effectively settled when Vivek Ramaswamy, backed by Trump and the state party, cleared the field and won with over 80 percent. Democrat Amy Acton, well known from Ohio's 2020 COVID briefings, is the nominee, but Democrats have not won the governorship in 20 years and the markets rate Ramaswamy a strong favorite in a state Trump carried by 11 points.
Ohio Senate Betting Odds
Ohio has a Senate special election on the 2026 ballot to fill the remainder of JD Vance's term, which expires in January 2029. Jon Husted, appointed by Governor DeWine in January 2025 when Vance became vice president, is the Republican nominee. He faced no credible primary challenge, raised strong fundraising numbers throughout 2025, and has Trump's endorsement. If Husted wins in November 2026, he will need to run again in 2028 for a full term.
The Democratic nominee is Sherrod Brown, who held a Senate seat from 2007 to 2025 before losing his 2024 re-election bid to Bernie Moreno by 4 points. Brown's return to the ballot in 2026 was widely expected, he is among the most prominent Democratic figures in any state where Trump won in 2024, and he had signaled openness to running soon after his 2024 loss. Brown brings universal name recognition and a long record of statewide wins (he held statewide office continuously from 1982 to 2025), but he is also running in a state that has moved significantly to the right since his last win in 2018, and against a Republican appointee with no obvious vulnerabilities.
Prediction markets are pricing the race as competitive but leaning Republican. Brown's path requires either a sharp shift in the political environment, an unforced error from Husted, or both. Bernie Moreno, the state's other senator, is not on the 2026 ballot. His next election is 2030. See all of the election odds for senate seats here.
Ohio U.S. Senate Election History
Ohio's Senate seats reflected its swing-state past before tipping Republican. Democrat Sherrod Brown won three terms beginning in 2006 by running ahead of his party on trade and labor, while the other seat passed from Republican George Voinovich to Republican Rob Portman and then, in 2022, to Republican JD Vance, who beat Tim Ryan as the state moved right.
The turning point was 2024, when Republican Bernie Moreno unseated Brown by 4 points, ending the career of the last statewide Democrat in Ohio. Vance's elevation to the vice presidency then opened his seat, filled by appointment with Jon Husted, which is on the 2026 ballot as a special election. Brown is attempting a comeback against Husted, a race the markets rate competitive but Republican-leaning, while Moreno's seat is not up until 2030.
Ohio House Betting Odds
Ohio has 15 House seats, and the 2026 elections will be the first run under a new Republican-drawn congressional map. The Ohio General Assembly passed the new map in late 2025 over Democratic objections, and Ohio's redistricting commission, the body voters created in 2018 to take partisan politics out of mapmaking, was bypassed because the Legislature failed to reach the bipartisan threshold the system requires.
The new map shifts the delegation from the current 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats toward a likely 11-4 split, with the targeted seat being OH-13 (Emilia Sykes, Akron, narrowly held by Democrats in 2024). Litigation challenging the map proceeded through Ohio courts during early 2026 and did not produce a ruling that would change the boundaries for 2026.
Prediction markets are pricing the Ohio House map alongside the Texas, Florida, and North Carolina maps as part of the broader 2026 redistricting story. Combined, those four states are designed to add roughly 10-11 Republican seats to the House delegation, enough by themselves to potentially preserve the current GOP House majority even if Republicans lose ground elsewhere. The countervailing redistricting in California, which added five Democratic-favorable seats under Proposition 50, partially offsets this. See all election odds for house seats here.
U.S. House districts
13 marketsOhio U.S. House Election History
Ohio's House delegation has shrunk with the state's relative population decline, from 18 seats in the 2000s to 15 today, and Republicans have controlled the bulk of it for two decades, aided by favorable maps. The 2018 voter-approved redistricting reforms were meant to curb partisan gerrymandering, and the resulting court fights over the 2021 maps produced a delegation that settled around 10-5 Republican.
For 2026, Republicans drew a new map after the bipartisan commission process broke down, pushing the likely split to 11-4 by targeting Democrat Emilia Sykes's Akron-based OH-13. Litigation did not change the lines in time for the election. The markets track Ohio's map as one piece of the national redistricting fight alongside Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, the Republican redraws that California's Proposition 50 was designed to offset.
Ohio Presidential Election Betting Odds
Ohio voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election from 1964 through 2020, a 56-year streak that earned it the nickname "the bellwether state." That streak technically ended in 2020 when Trump won Ohio but lost nationally. By 2024, Trump's Ohio margin had expanded to 11 points, the state is no longer a bellwether and is no longer a swing state. Cook PVI rates it at R+6, putting it firmly in the Republican column for the foreseeable future.
For 2028, Ohio's 17 electoral votes are essentially locked in for the Republican nominee. The state's significance to 2028 markets comes through Vice President JD Vance, who served as Ohio's senator from 2023 to 2025 and remains the most prominent national Republican from the state. Vance is the current frontrunner in Polymarket's 2028 Republican nominee market, and Ohio-specific polling on his standing, particularly relative to alternative Republicans, generates regular market activity.
Ohio Presidential Election History
For more than half a century, Ohio was the nation's premier presidential bellwether, voting for the winner in every election from 1964 through 2016 and earning the maxim that no Republican has won the White House without it. Both parties poured enormous resources into the state through 2012, when Barack Obama carried it twice by narrow margins.
That era is over. Trump won Ohio by 8 points in 2016 and 2020 and by 11 in 2024, and the state voted Republican while the country went Democratic in 2020, formally ending the bellwether streak. The shift tracks the realignment of the state's working-class white voters and its industrial decline. The 17 electoral votes are now safely Republican, and for 2028 the markets treat Ohio as off the battleground map, relevant mainly as the home state of Vice President JD Vance.
Ohio Political Props & Other Markets
State-specific prediction markets tied to Ohio politics, like cabinet moves, resignations, and ballot questions.
Special Election
Ohio Political Polls
The polls below pull the latest 2026 survey data for Ohio's races. In the open governor's race you will see Republican Vivek Ramaswamy against Democrat Amy Acton, and in the Senate special election, appointed Republican Jon Husted against former Senator Sherrod Brown, the most competitive of the two statewide contests.
Ohio polling now tends to confirm the state's Republican lean rather than upend it, so the number to watch is whether Brown, with his unmatched name recognition, can keep the Senate special close enough to make Husted sweat. The Mahoning Valley and the Cincinnati and Columbus suburbs are the regions that move the margins. Where a race has no recent public polling, that section will say so rather than show stale data.
Ohio governor polls
| Pollster | Dates | Sample | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 270toWin | June 3–25, 2026 | Vivek Ramaswamy (R) 46.5% · Amy Acton (D) 48.5% · Other/Undecided 5% | |
| RealClearPolitics | March 13 – June 16, 2026 | Vivek Ramaswamy (R) 46.5% · Amy Acton (D) 47.5% · Other/Undecided 6% | |
| Fabrizio Ward (R)/ Impact Research (D) | June 14-16, 2026 | 800 (LV) | Vivek Ramaswamy (R) 44% · Amy Acton (D) 47% · Other 1% · Undecided 9% |
| Tulchin Research (D) | June 2–4, 2026 | 600 (LV) | Vivek Ramaswamy (R) 44% · Amy Acton (D) 47% · Undecided 9% |
| Beacon Research (D)/ Shaw & Co. Research (R) | May 28 – June 1, 2026 | 1,015 (RV) | Vivek Ramaswamy (R) 49% · Amy Acton (D) 50% · Undecided 1% |
| Bowling Green State University/YouGov | April 7–14, 2026 | 383 (LV) | Heather Hill 12% · Casey Putsch 12% · Vivek Ramaswamy 76% |
Polling data adapted from 2026 Ohio gubernatorial election under CC-BY-SA 4.0. Last refreshed 3 hours ago.
Ohio U.S. Senate polls
| Pollster | Dates | Sample | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 270toWin | June 3–25, 2026 | Jon Husted (R) 45% · Sherrod Brown (D) 50.5% · Other/Undecided 4.5% | |
| RealClearPolitics | March 13 – June 16, 2026 | Jon Husted (R) 46.5% · Sherrod Brown (D) 48% · Other/Undecided 5.5% | |
| Fabrizio Ward (R)/ Impact Research (D) | June 14–16, 2026 | 800 (LV) | Jon Husted (R) 45% · Sherrod Brown (D) 48% · Other 1% · Undecided 7% |
| Tulchin Research (D) | June 2–4, 2026 | 600 (LV) | Jon Husted (R) 42% · Sherrod Brown (D) 46% · Other 4% · Undecided 7% |
| Beacon Research (D)/ Shaw & Co. Research (R) | May 28 – June 1, 2026 | 1,015 (RV) | Jon Husted (R) 45% · Sherrod Brown (D) 53% · Undecided 2% |
| Bowling Green State University/YouGov | April 7–14, 2026 | 1,000 (RV) | Jon Husted (R) 50% · Sherrod Brown (D) 47% · Other 3% |
Polling data adapted from 2026 United States Senate election in Ohio under CC-BY-SA 4.0. Last refreshed 3 hours ago.
Frequently Asked Questions About Ohio Elections
Is Ohio a red state or a blue state?
Ohio is a red state. Once the nation's premier bellwether, it has voted Republican in every presidential election since 2008, Trump carried it by 11 points in 2024, and Cook PVI rates it R+6. Republicans hold every statewide office.
Why are both the governor and a Senate seat open in 2026?
Governor Mike DeWine is term-limited, opening the governorship. JD Vance's move to the vice presidency opened his Senate seat, which is on the 2026 ballot as a special election to fill the rest of his term.
Who is favored in the Ohio governor race?
Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who won the primary with over 80 percent after a Trump endorsement, is a strong favorite over Democrat Amy Acton. Democrats have not won an Ohio governor race since 2006.
Can Sherrod Brown win the Ohio Senate special election?
It is the more competitive of Ohio's statewide races. Brown has universal name recognition and a long record of statewide wins, but he is running against appointed Republican Jon Husted in a state that has moved right, and the markets rate the race competitive but leaning Republican.
Odds are aggregated from public prediction markets including Polymarket and Kalshi and are updated multiple times daily. They reflect real-money market pricing, not polling or editorial forecasts, and are provided for informational purposes only. ElectionOdds.com does not accept wagers.