Mahoning County turnout reached 58 percent in the November 3 general election — the highest for a midterm in at least 28 years, county Republican chair Tom McCabe told Natalie Fertig’s newsletter — as the county swung back to the Democrats a cycle after backing Donald Trump by nine points. The county’s results remain unofficial until the Mahoning County Board of Elections completes its canvass and certifies them, with Ohio boards required to certify by November 24.
At the top of the ticket, the county delivered the margins that defined its swing. Sherrod Brown won Mahoning County 51 percent to 44 percent over Jon Husted in the U.S. Senate race, and Amy Acton carried the county by 12 points over Vivek Ramaswamy in the governor’s race, according to unofficial Associated Press results reported by the Washington Examiner. Both Democrats won statewide.
At home, Democrat Lauren McNally won the open county commissioner seat with 48,438 votes, 55.8 percent, to 38,446 for Republican Christine Oliver, and incumbent auditor Ralph Meacham held his office with 46,338 votes, 53.7 percent, to 40,006 for Dalton Bosze, according to the final unofficial results compiled from the Mahoning County Board of Elections, with all 212 of the county’s 212 precincts reporting.
The night’s closest Mahoning County finish came in Boardman Township, where a police and fire safety levy failed by 148 votes — 8,927 against to 8,779 in favor — in unofficial results from the Mahoning County Board of Elections reported by The Vindicator. Township leaders had projected an $867,000 gap in 2027 if the levy failed, The Vindicator reported.
The swing was the story beyond any single race. Mahoning County moved more than 16 points from Trump’s 2024 margin to Brown’s, the Washington Examiner reported from the Associated Press results — a shift that drew national attention to Youngstown as a bellwether for working-class voters in the first midterm of the post-Trump era.
What happens next is the official canvass: the board will review provisional ballots and any remaining eligible absentee ballots under state rules and certify Mahoning County’s results by the November 24 deadline, after which the certified totals go to the Secretary of State. Results in this report are the Mahoning County Board of Elections’ final unofficial figures as compiled after election night, with statewide-race margins reported by the Washington Examiner from the Associated Press and the Boardman levy result reported by The Vindicator.
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