McARTHUR, Ohio — Vinton County voters backed Republicans up and down the ballot on Tuesday, electing C. Scott Ward to the county commission and carrying the Republican nominees for governor and U.S. Senate by roughly two-to-one margins, according to unofficial results.
Ward, a Republican, defeated Democrat Steven Ray Hammond 68.7% to 31.3% in the race for Vinton County commissioner, for a full term beginning January 1, 2027, according to unofficial results from the Vinton County Board of Elections reported by the Scioto Valley Guardian. All 20 of the county’s precincts had reported.
In the governor’s race, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy carried Vinton County with 65.9% of the vote to Democrat Amy Acton’s 29.4%, with Libertarian Don Kissick at 4.7%, according to unofficial results from the Ohio Secretary of State reported by the Scioto Valley Guardian. Statewide, Acton won the governorship — Vinton was one of the rural counties that stayed firmly in the Republican column on a night Ohio moved the other way.
The special U.S. Senate election told the same local story. Republican Jon Husted took 64.7% in Vinton County to Democrat Sherrod Brown’s 28.1%, with Libertarian William Redpath at 5.1% and independent Greg Levy at 2.1%, according to the Scioto Valley Guardian’s account of the Secretary of State’s unofficial results. The Associated Press county figures for the race — Husted 2,526 votes, Brown 1,096, Redpath 199 and Levy 82, with 19 of 20 precincts reporting in the AP count — line up with those percentages. Brown won the seat statewide.
Vinton County voters also approved State Issue 3, the proposed constitutional amendment requiring voters to show photo identification, by 79.7% to 20.3%, according to unofficial results reported by the Scioto Valley Guardian.
Turnout in the county was 49.5%: 3,992 ballots were cast out of 8,059 registered voters, according to unofficial results from the Ohio Secretary of State reported by the Scioto Valley Guardian.
All of these results are unofficial until the Vinton County Board of Elections completes its official canvass and the results are certified. What happens next is that canvass: the board will consider qualifying provisional and overseas absentee ballots, finalize its counts, and certify the results later this month, at which point Ward’s January 1 term and the county’s statewide numbers become official.