LONDON, Ohio — Madison County voters backed the losing side in Ohio’s two biggest races on Tuesday: with 23 of the county’s 24 precincts reporting and an estimated 98 percent of its vote counted, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy carried Madison County 9,709 votes to 5,872 over Democrat Amy Acton in the governor’s race, according to the Associated Press’s Madison County reporting unit — even as the AP called Ohio for Acton, the state’s first woman elected governor. In the U.S. Senate race, Republican Jon Husted led Democrat Sherrod Brown 9,934 to 5,411 in Madison County, with Libertarian William Redpath at 574 and independent Greg Levy at 337, though the AP called the Senate race statewide for Brown.
Statewide, the AP put Acton at 2,145,218 votes to Ramaswamy’s 1,921,915, and Brown at 2,052,321 to Husted’s 1,956,141, with about 89 percent of precincts reporting. The Columbus Dispatch and the Cincinnati Enquirer reported the AP’s 10:49 p.m. call for Acton, the first Democrat elected governor of Ohio since 2006.
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Madison County’s Republican lean ran down the ballot. In the race for secretary of state, Republican Robert Sprague took 10,164 Madison County votes to Democrat Allison Russo’s 5,362, with Libertarian Tom Pruss at 583, according to the AP’s county reporting — a race the AP still listed as too early to call statewide, with the Columbus Dispatch reporting Russo holding a slim statewide lead late Tuesday. And Madison County voters approved State Issue 3, the voter photo ID constitutional amendment, by 12,200 votes to 3,841, according to the AP; the amendment passed statewide.
The county also sat inside one of the night’s upsets: U.S. House District 15, which the Columbus Dispatch’s Madison County results page lists among the county’s contests, went to Democrat Don Leonard over Republican incumbent Mike Carey, 148,472 votes to 127,992 district-wide with 96.7 percent of precincts reporting, according to the AP, which called that race for Leonard. County-only House figures were not yet available.
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What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. Still unknown at this hour are the outcomes of Madison County’s own local questions. The Columbus Dispatch’s pre-election roundup, compiled from the Madison County Board of Elections’ certified issues list, and the board’s own certified issues document show what was on the ballot: a City of London renewal levy of 2.1 mills for current expenses and a London natural gas aggregation question; an additional 4.75-mill levy for the Central Townships Joint Fire District; an additional 4.75-mill levy for the Madison County Emergency Medical District; fire and ambulance renewal levies in Range Township and the Sterling Joint Ambulance District; an additional 2.5-mill Tri-County Joint Fire District levy; and school levies for the Jefferson Local and Miami Trace Local districts. Neither the AP — which does not tabulate local levies — nor the board’s published returns available overnight carried vote totals for those items, and NewsForce247 will not report their outcomes until the Madison County Board of Elections posts its unofficial canvass.
All of Tuesday’s figures are unofficial. The Ohio Secretary of State notes that the official canvass is completed about three weeks after Election Day and adds qualifying provisional and overseas ballots; county boards must certify within 21 days, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
