ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Republican U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson has retained his seat in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District, defeating Democratic challenger Jerrad Christian in Tuesday’s general election. CNN and NBC News called the race for Balderson at about 10:14 p.m., the Columbus Dispatch reported, and the Scioto Valley Guardian also projected Balderson the winner in its election-night coverage.
As of 10:12 p.m., Balderson carried 59.8 percent of the vote to Christian’s 40.2 percent, with 84 percent of precincts reporting, according to unofficial results reported by the Dispatch. The margin held through the night as the district’s counties finished counting, keeping one of Ohio’s most reliably Republican seats in Republican hands even as Democrats flipped other House seats elsewhere in the state.
Balderson, who lives in Zanesville, has represented the district in Washington since winning a special election in 2018, and he was reelected through the district’s redrawn lines in the first election held under the congressional map approved by the Ohio Redistricting Commission in October 2025. The 12th District anchors in Muskingum County and stretches across a wide band of central and southeastern Ohio communities.
Christian, his Democratic challenger, ran as an outsider candidate against the incumbent but could not close the gap in a district drawn to favor Republicans. The Dispatch’s election-night tally showed Balderson leading by nearly 20 points with most precincts in — a cushion consistent with the district’s recent voting history.
The result stood in contrast to the night’s bigger surprises elsewhere in Ohio, where Democrats upset Republican incumbents in the Columbus-area 15th District and led in other redrawn seats. In the 12th, by comparison, the early returns pointed the same direction all evening, and the networks’ call came relatively early in the night.
Balderson returns to a House whose majority was still being settled nationally late Tuesday, with control of the chamber central to how much of either party’s agenda can move in the next two years. His office’s priorities in past terms have included energy, agriculture and rural broadband issues affecting the district’s small towns and farm communities.
All results from Tuesday remain unofficial until county boards of elections complete their canvasses and certify the totals later this month. Balderson’s new two-year term begins in January when the next Congress is sworn in.
Photo: Toni Leland, CC BY-SA