Election 2026: Amy Acton, Sherrod Brown claim victory in Ohio

Ohio was part of a massive blue wave on Tuesday night. Democrats claimed control of both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, while simultaneously gaining several governorships. The party was aided by multiple victories in Ohio, including statewide gains in the Senate and Statehouse.

Dr. Amy Acton delivered a stunning victory in the race for Ohio governor on Tuesday, overcoming more than $100 million spent against her to become the first Democrat to win the seat in 20 years and the first woman ever elected to the state’s top post.

The public health physician and former COVID-19-era state health director defeated Trump-backed Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech billionaire and 2024 presidential candidate. She campaigned relentlessly on affordability and better access to healthcare, appealing to working- and middle-class voters by emphasizing her hardscrabble roots as an Ohio native who spent part of her childhood homeless and, for one winter, living out of a tent.

Former Sen. Sherrod Brown defeated Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio on Tuesday, flipping a seat that was crucial to Democrats’ strategy to retake the chamber and providing a ray of hope for the party’s longer-term prospects in a former swing state that had turned sharply to the right over the last decade.

“You sent an undeniable message tonight: Ohio is not for sale,” Brown said.

Brown won after hammering Husted relentlessly throughout one of the nation’s most expensive races, drawing attention to the Republican’s support for artificial intelligence data centers, his ties to a bribery scandal at the statehouse and campaign donations he’d taken from billionaire retail magnate Les Wexner, who once employed the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

“My pledge to all Ohioans, whether you voted for me or not, is that I will always be on your side — always,” Brown said.

Elsewhere in Ohio, in U.S House District 7, Democrat Brian Poindexter defeated embattled incubent Rep. Max Miller, Republican. A little before midnight on Election Day, the Associated Press’ tracker showed approximately 80-percent of votes counted in the district, and Poindexter receiving a little more than 54-percent of the vote.

Victory and concession speeches

Brown and Acton spoke at a rally for supporters. Live footage from that rally is below.

Ramaswamy and Husted’s concession speeches can be seen below.

Reporting from the Associated Press was used in this report.