Two years ago, Donald Trump won Ohio’s 17 electoral votes by a comfortable margin of 11 percentage points.
Today, Trump’s approval rating is far under water.
"While Donald Trump has won the state handily three times, we see a lot of trouble brewing for him and his policies in the state," Robert Alexander, professor of political science at Bowling Green State University, said following a recent poll by the university. "He has had a negative approval rating for a year now, and many of his policies are not popular. That about 15% of his voters now regret their vote to some degree suggests his grip on the state is not absolute."
Nonetheless, the two main Republican candidates for statewide office — gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and current Senator Jon Husted, appointed in January 2025 to the seat left vacant when JD Vance was elected vice president — appear to be sticking with Trump, for good or ill.
Neither one has gone out his way to put any distance between themselves and an unpopular president.
Their respective Democratic opponents — former Ohio Health Department director Amy Acton, who is running for governor, or former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown — have any hesitancy to beat on the opponents for their fealty to Trump.
Here's what we'll be watching.
Sherrod Brown vs. Jon Husted for U.S. Senate
Data centers aren't just behemoth buildings, they're also the behemoth issue in Ohio's race for U.S. Senate.
Former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who lost his seat to Bernie Moreno in 2024, seems to have backed current Ohio Sen. Jon Husted into a corner over data centers, calling him "the face of data centers" in the state.
That designation hasn't gone unnoticed by Republicans at the national level.
Axios recently published a leaked memo from the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) warning supporters in the AI business that data centers have become “the sleeper issue” in this year’s election.
“If (Husted) loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one," the NRSC memo says.
Husted’s campaign dismissed the idea of data centers as a make-or-break issue to WVXU.
“Data centers are, and should remain, a local decision,” a campaign spokesperson wrote in an email. “Every community has different priorities, and local leaders are best equipped to decide what's right for their residents."
That statement is in line with legislation Husted proposed in July, requiring data center companies to pay for the power they use and return excess electricity to the grid.
Husted once fiercely backed data centers, and during his time as Ohio's lieutenant governor, offered big sales and tax breaks to lure tech companies to the state. He now says those incentives should no longer be awarded, telling the Statehouse News Bureau in July that data centers have done “a terrible job of talking about the value and virtue of it.”
“They’ve earned that backlash,” Husted said. “They haven’t been as forthcoming about the benefits that will come in terms of local jobs and construction worker jobs and reduced property taxes, and they haven’t offered things like paying the energy bills for local communities for the power plants they build.”
A decade ago, Brown also expressed support for data centers. When he held the office he is again running for in 2015, Brown celebrated Amazon Web Services’ investments in central Ohio, according to an archived news release.
“This new data center is great news for New Albany and central Ohio,” Brown said at the time. “Amazon’s growth in central Ohio signals that this region is not only a great place to do business, but a place where people want to live and raise a family. I look forward to working to ensure that our region’s burgeoning logistics hub continues to grow — creating good jobs for Ohioans and helping businesses prosper.”
Amy Acton vs. Vivek Ramaswamy for Ohio governor
Ohio hasn't elected a Democratic governor in 20 years. Polling, however, shows that the race is as tight as a tick.
Unlike Ohio's Senate contest, no one issue is at the center of the governor's race, meaning the polling wheel is likely to keep spinning up until Election Day.
Democratic candidate Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy have one thing in common: neither has much experience in politics.
Acton is the former director of the Ohio Department of Health, who, during the COVID pandemic, was a constant presence in daily briefings for the public with her then-boss, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, until she suddenly walked away from the job.
Likewise, just a short time ago, the Cincinnati-born biotech billionaire, Ramaswamy, wasn’t even thought of by most people in Ohio as a politician. The only time his name has been on a ballot was in 2023 when he was a presidential candidate in the January 2024 Iowa caucuses. On caucus day, he earned just 7.6% of the vote. Donald Trump won with 51%. The very next day, Ramaswamy hopped on a plane to join Trump in New Hampshire, the first presidential primary state, and endorsed him.
After a brief stint in January as Elon Musk’s partner in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Ramaswamy returned to Ohio to apply for the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by JD Vance’s election as Trump’s vice president.
The appointment fell to Gov. Mike DeWine, who talked to Ramaswamy about it. However, he instead appointed his own lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, to the seat.
Almost immediately after being passed over, Ramaswamy decided to run for governor of his native state.
What about U.S. Rep Max Miller's reelection bid?
What was likely to be a sure thing for Northeast Ohio U.S. Rep. Max Miller's re-election bid has turned into a national scandal.
Miller, of Rocky River, has denied allegations made by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of Ohio U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno. Among them are claims that Miller held a gun to Moreno’s daughter’s head and scalded her with hot water. Although their divorce was finalized in 2025, an investigation released last month into more than 2,000 related court records by Mother Jones renewed scrutiny of Miller, the Ohio Statehouse News Bureau reports.
Miller maintains his innocence, and asked the U.S. House Committee on Ethics to investigate him to “clear [his] name from these horrific attacks.”
“I have absolutely nothing to hide,” he wrote on X.
In light of all the renewed interest in my family affairs I am going to file my own paperwork for an ethics investigation into myself to clear my name from these horrific attacks on myself and family. I have absolutely nothing to hide.
— Max Miller (@MaxMillerOH) August 4, 2026
We will be providing the committee all…
While many top Republican officials in Ohio, including Gov. DeWine and Sen. Husted, have remained silent on the topic, at least one has spoken out against Miller: Sen. Bernie Moreno.
"If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them," Moreno wrote on X. "He should not serve in the House of Representatives. I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does."
As a father and husband, I can tell you the last two years have been pure hell for my wife Bridget, our daughter Emily, me, and our entire family in the aftermath of Emily's divorce.
— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) August 2, 2026
It has been horrific to watch this play out in full public view, all while knowing an innocent…
Miller faces Democrat Brian Poindexter and independents Thahbia Asad and Andrey Martinichin in November.
Don't forget about Issue 3
With candidate campaign ads eating up most of Ohio's airwaves, it can be easy to overlook the issue on the Buckeye State ballot this November. Issue 3 is Ohio's only issue this year, and it asks voters whether a law requiring voters show government-issued photo ID for any in-person voting should become part of Ohio's constitution.
That’s already required to vote, before and on Election Day, and it has been that way since 2023.
But the GOP-majority legislature has said that law is not enough.
“By enshrining this language in the [Ohio] Constitution, we are really setting a floor, so that future general assemblies won’t be able to go backwards,” Sen. Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) argued in August.
By making that law part of Ohio's constitution, it would be harder to change. Ohio's constitution can only be amended by a vote of its people, and for citizens to put a proposed amendment on the ballot, they have to gather hundreds of thousands of valid signatures from all over the state.
If approved, Issue 3 would not change Ohio’s rules for mail-in voting. Voters casting absentee ballots would still be exempt from the photo ID law, and instead continue to be allowed to provide an alternative form of ID, such as the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Ohio Democrats say Issue 3 is nothing more than a way for Republicans to motivate their side to the polls.
You can read Issue 3's full ballot language, including arguments for and against, on the Ohio Secretary of State's website.
