How Ohio Flipped: Why Acton and Brown Won a State Trump Carried by 11 Points

Esshan Kharat — November 10, 2026

Two years after Donald Trump carried Ohio by 11 points, Democrats won its two biggest races. Amy Acton beat Vivek Ramaswamy for governor 52.31% to 44.38%, and Sherrod Brown unseated Sen. Jon Husted 2,301,042 votes to 2,077,748, a 223,294-vote lead in the Ohio Secretary of State’s unofficial count as of Nov. 4. These counts are still unofficial. Exactly 102,148 provisional ballots were outstanding, and the Ohio Secretary of State’s office says certified results are expected about three weeks after the election.

There is no single reason Ohio flipped. The clearest way to understand it is to take the main explanations one at a time. One explanation comes from outgoing Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who stated the election was a “mighty wind” that blew across Ohio and the whole country.

What happened?

The AP had called the governor’s race by 10:45 p.m. on Tuesday, with 85% of votes counted, Signal Ohio reported. Acton will be Ohio’s first elected woman governor and the first Democrat to win the office since Ted Strickland in 2006. She won 15 counties and flipped eight that Trump carried in 2024. Brown, who lost his seat in 2024, is now the seventh former senator since 1946 to lose and then return. He will serve out JD Vance’s term, which ends in January 2029.

Why was it a surprise?

Ohio had turned solidly red, with Republicans holding every key statewide office and both Senate seats. The polls still pointed the other way by the end. The final NYT/Siena poll had Acton up 6 points, and Marist found Trump’s approval among likely voters at 43% approve, 55% disapprove.

How did Acton and Brown win?

Affordability. In Fox News exit polling, 85% of voters called the cost of living a crucial or major factor. Acton took her message to rural Ohio, where prices and health care costs were what voters cared about most. She also went after “legacy Republicans” by breaking with progressives on transgender athletes and ICE cooperation.
Name recognition from the pandemic. Acton became famous at DeWine’s 2020 COVID briefings. Republicans tried to use that against her. DeWine defended her and took responsibility for the shutdown decisions, even though he stayed behind Ramaswamy.
The ad featuring Acton’s mother. Ramaswamy ran an ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, and every living full-term Ohio governor condemned it. Trump and Vance defended it. Private polling from both parties showed a swing toward Acton after it aired, and Ramaswamy pulled it from TV the week before the election.
Data centers. Brown called Husted “the face of data centers”. A leaked NRSC memo called the issue the “anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.” Brown also kept bringing up Husted’s testimony in the FirstEnergy bribery trial.
Independents and women. NBC exit polls had Acton winning independents 62% to 33% and women 56% to 41%.

Did money and Trump matter?

Republicans did not lose because they were outspent. Ramaswamy and his allies put more than $100 million into ads. Signal Ohio, citing AdImpact, said total advertising against Acton topped $200 million, compared with at least $44 million on her side. The Senate Leadership Fund committed $79 million to Husted, more than it put into any other state. Brown still outraised Husted, with $68.4 million in total receipts to $19.9 million, according to Legis1. Trump and Vance held three Ohio rallies in 10 days and kept coming back in the final weeks. None of it saved either Republican.

How did the rest of the ballot go?

Republicans’ only statewide win was Frank LaRose for auditor, the same pattern as 2006. Allison Russo won the secretary of state race, the first Democrat in that office since 2011. Marilyn Zayas unseated Justice Dan Hawkins, 51.01% to 48.99%, leaving Republicans with a 5-2 majority on the court. John Kulewicz won attorney general 2,285,117 votes to 2,256,710, a gap of about 28,400, after Keith Faber conceded.

Realignment or wave?

It is probably a wave. Down the ballot, the Democratic margins narrowed: Acton won by about 7.9 points, Russo by 3.5, Treasurer-elect Seth Walsh by 1.1, and Kulewicz by 0.6. That spread points to ticket-splitting and candidate quality, not a new Democratic base. Brown won without new support from rural voters. Emory’s Alan Abramowitz called the election a “breakthrough” driven by discontent with Trump, but he does not expect it to last. In his words, “we remain very polarized.”

What does it mean for 2028 and for governing Ohio?

Ohio was part of a national wave. Democrats won both chambers of Congress and flipped governorships in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas. Brown’s seat and the presidency are both on the 2028 ballot, and Russo will be running in that election. In Columbus, Acton faces pressure from two directions:

Her leverage: Democrats broke the GOP supermajority in the Ohio House, which now stands at 42 Democrats to 52 Republicans in unofficial results, with five races still too close to call as of Nov. 4. Without the supermajority, Republicans need Democratic votes to override her vetoes.
Her limits: Republicans keep both chambers and a 22-11 Senate supermajority. In the lame-duck session, they could try to strip some of the governor’s powers, though DeWine says he won’t sign that kind of bill.
Her legislation: Acton has promised three executive orders on day one, including an anti-corruption task force due to report within 100 days, followed by a tax cut for working families. She takes office Jan. 11 and must submit a budget by March 15.

What we still don’t know: Counties must certify by Nov. 24, and some Ohio House races could go to recounts. It is also too early to say whether Ohio is a swing state again or simply had one bad year for Republicans.