A lot more voters turned out across Greater Cincinnati Tuesday than the last midterm election, likely helping Democrats in some tight, high-profile races in Ohio.
Unofficial tallies from the Hamilton County Board of Elections show about 56% of registered voters turned out for the 2026 midterms in the county.
That's much higher than the 51% who turned out in 2022, accounting for about 38,000 more ballots cast this time around.
Karen Landers was surprised when she got to her small polling location inside a church in Camp Washington Tuesday morning.
"It's definitely more busy here," she told WVXU. "Every single one of the booths is full the whole time. Usually, you don't have two people outside waiting, you just go in."
Cincinnati voter Paul Grilli agreed.
"It's a little bit different than normal," he said. "It's the first time I've ever waited in line. More people, more turnout."
The story was similar in Butler County, where Margaret Bandkemper cast her vote at Fairfield's golf course.
"It is more crowded than it usually is," she said. "But I was able to get right in."
Turnout in Butler County hit almost 60% — up from just 51% in 2022. Other voters leaving Butler County polling places also remarked on larger than usual crowds.
Other suburban counties around Cincinnati saw similar increases in voter turnout:
- 64% turnout in Warren County, up from about 60% in 2022
- 60% turnout in Clermont County, up from 56% in 2022
Clermont County voter Steve Young credited tight, high-profile statewide races for the boost.
"For sure the senate and governor's race," he said outside his polling location. "For a midterm election there are more people here than usual."
Higher turnout helps Dems
The higher turnout likely helped boost Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and senate candidate Sherrod Brown to election night wins.
For example, Acton won Hamilton County with 63% of the vote compared to the roughly 49% Democrat Nan Whaley received from the county during her unsuccessful 2022 gubernatorial bid. Acton also did better in more conservative counties — netting about 45% of the vote in Butler County compared to the roughly 30% Whaley got there in 2022. She also received about 39% of the vote in deep-red Clermont County, which only gave Whaley 25% in 2022.
Another race in which higher turnout might have boosted a Democrat candidate in Greater Cincinnati: the race between incumbent U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican, and his challenger Democrat Vanessa Enoch in Ohio's 8th Congressional District.
The district stretching from northern Hamilton County through Butler, Preble, Darke and a portion of Miami County has voted reliably Republican in the past. This time seems to be no exception on first glance — Davidson won with 52% of the vote to Enoch's 48%.
But a huge shift is apparent when looking back at the 2022 midterms, when Davidson won by 65% of the vote to Enoch's 35%. Redistricting changed the boundaries of the district slightly in 2025, shifting a portion of Butler County into the neighboring 10th District and a portion of western Hamilton County into the 1st District. But it's doubtful those relatively minor changes alone were enough to change Enoch's 30-point deficit into a four-point deficit.
Enoch ran up a large, 20% advantage in the Hamilton County portion of the district in part thanks to higher turnout there. Notably, Davidson took the district's Hamilton County portion with 56.6% of the vote in 2022.
Enoch also reduced Davidson's 30 percentage-point 2022 margin in Butler County, coming within 12 points of the incumbent this election. Enoch even chipped away a few points from Davidson's 2022 leads in deep-red Preble, Darke and Miami counties this year.
Northern Kentucky
Turnout was also higher than in 2022 in Northern Kentucky, though a smaller proportion of registered voters cast ballots in those counties.
Boone County saw 42% of registered voters cast ballots, according to the Kentucky Secretary of State's unofficial results. That's up from less than 40% in 2022. Kenton County saw about 37% turnout — up a single percentage point from 2022. Campbell County also saw a small uptick in midterm voting, getting almost 48% turnout compared to 44% last midterm.
Some voters at polling locations in Northern Kentucky reported higher-than-average crowds at the ballot box, while others said turnout was about what they expected from past midterm elections. Those casting ballots also had differing interpretations of what that meant for election results in a state that didn't see quite the same blue wave that Ohio saw.
"It's a lot busier, " Republican voter Brian Kirby said after casting his ballot in Boone County. When asked why he thought that was, he replied, "people don't like communists," referring to a common insult President Donald Trump and other GOP politicians have used to deride Democrats.
Most voters WVXU talked to at the polling location said they were backing Republicans. But Alicia Trencamp said she voted for the Democrat vying to replace retiring Senator Mitch McConnell.
"Kentucky has been run by the same party for about 30 years now," she said. "So I voted for Charles Booker."
Booker, a former state lawmaker, received about 40% of the vote in Boone County on his way to a loss to Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Barr. That's about eight points higher than he got in 2022, when he ran for a senate seat against incumbent U.S. Sen. Rand Paul.
Booker also got a higher share of the vote in Kenton and Campbell counties, coming within two points of Barr in both places this election. Paul won 58% of the vote in Campbell County and 59% in Kenton counties in 2022. Some of that was surely due to Paul's incumbency and high name recognition. But the higher turnout in those counties this year certainly doesn't seem to have hurt Booker's margins.
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