Fulton County voted heavily Republican up and down the statewide ticket on November 3, backing Republicans for U.S. Senate, governor and secretary of state even as Ohio voters elected Democrats to all three offices statewide, according to unofficial results with 28 of the county’s 29 precincts reporting and an estimated 98% of the vote counted. More than 17,000 ballots were cast in the county’s top races, out of 28,928 registered voters, according to the Fulton County Board of Elections’ voter lookup.
In the U.S. Senate race, Fulton County gave Republican Jon Husted 10,632 votes to Democrat Sherrod Brown’s 5,743, with Libertarian William Redpath at 650 and independent Greg Levy at 334, in unofficial county totals reported by the Associated Press from county and Secretary of State reporting. Brown won the seat statewide despite losing Fulton County by nearly 4,900 votes.
The governor’s race followed the same pattern. Republican Vivek Ramaswamy carried Fulton County with 10,337 votes to Democrat Amy Acton’s 6,165 in unofficial results, even as Acton won the governorship statewide. For secretary of state, Republican Robert Sprague took 11,003 Fulton County votes to Democrat Allison Russo’s 5,521 and Libertarian Tom Pruss’s 696 — again, Russo won the office statewide while finishing second in Fulton County.
In the 9th Congressional District, Republican Derek Merrin carried Fulton County with 10,934 votes to Democratic U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s 6,360, a margin of about 26 points in the county, according to the unofficial totals. Kaptur nevertheless won the district, which the Associated Press called in her favor in the early hours of November 4 — Fulton’s Republican lean was not enough to overcome her strength elsewhere in the district, which stretches along Lake Erie.
Fulton County’s clearest verdict came on statewide Issue 3, the constitutional amendment enshrining Ohio’s photo ID voting requirement: 13,628 county voters said yes to 3,701 no, a roughly 79% yes vote in unofficial results. Issue 3 passed statewide as well, making Fulton County part of the winning coalition on the night’s only statewide ballot question.
Below the statewide races, Fulton’s ballot — as printed in the Board of Elections’ official ballot proofs — asked voters to decide a contested county commissioner race between Republican Jeff Rupp and Brinda S. Miller, a District 81 state representative race between Republican Patti Rockey and Democrat David Swanson, a Wauseon parks levy (Issue 9, an additional 1.6 mills for parks and recreation), a Wauseon charter amendment creating a Department of Building and Zoning, a Wauseon schools income-tax renewal, Clinton Township fire, road and cemetery levies, and a four-county ADAMhs renewal. The Board of Elections posts its full precinct-level results through its official results report; those local totals remain part of the unofficial count until the canvass is complete.
All of these results remain unofficial. The Ohio Secretary of State’s office notes that results are not final until certification: the official canvass is completed approximately three weeks after the election, following the state’s review of county boards’ official canvass reports, and qualifying provisional ballots are counted during that canvass. Military and overseas ballots mailed by Election Day had up to four days after November 3 to arrive and be counted. The Fulton County Board of Elections, at 135 Courthouse Plaza in Wauseon, will complete the county’s official canvass as part of that process, and NewsForce247 will update this story when the local results — including the commissioner race and the Wauseon levies — are certified.