Preview only: Ohio's own model is not built yet. The county groups, map, what-if scenarios and past-race numbers on this page are Texas's, used as stand-ins. The polls and results are Ohio's.
The forecast
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Numbers as a table
Things to know
The race in two minutes
Read by Maren Holt, Pollitrack's anchor · Recorded October 24
Read the transcript
I'm Maren Holt, and this is your Pollitrack digest on the Senate race in Ohio.
This is a special election for the seat JD Vance left to become vice president, and whoever takes it serves until January 2029. Ohio rotates the order of names from precinct to precinct, so we list them alphabetically: Democrat Sherrod Brown, a former senator, and Republican Jon Husted, the senator appointed to the seat last year. The vote is on November 3.
The polling average has Brown ahead by 3.1 points across eleven recent polls. Pollitrack's forecast takes 2 points off that, because Ohio polls have understated Republicans in every race since 2018. That leaves Brown ahead by 1.1, with a 59 percent chance of finishing first and Husted at 41 percent.
A lead that size is well inside a normal polling miss. Either candidate could finish ahead.
Early voting runs through November first. So far, about a million Ohioans have voted early, in person or by mail.
A big early vote does not tell us who is ahead. It tells us interest is high on both sides.
On election night, Pollitrack reads five bellwether counties, each standing in for a part of the state: Cuyahoga for Cleveland and Akron, Butler for the big metros and their suburbs, Erie on Lake Erie for the working-class swing vote, Wayne for rural and Appalachian Ohio, and Clark for the small cities and northwest farm country.
Polls close at 7:30 pm Eastern. As those counties report, the forecast stops leaning on polls and starts reading votes. Scroll down to explore each county, or switch to What-if mode and play out your own night. I'm Maren Holt. See you on election night.
The recording plays on the Pollitrack site. The transcript is above.
Early voting
How to read this: the line adds up early votes day by day, in person and by mail. The amber line is 2026; the gray lines are past years on the same day of early voting, so a 2026 line above them means more early votes than then. Refreshed every morning and afternoon from the Ohio Secretary of State's absentee voter export.Numbers as a table
Numbers as a table
Cumulative early votes, in person and by mail, against the same day in 2022 and 2024.
In the news
How to read this: the headlines free news sources carry about this race, newest first, with who published each. The counts are how many stories named each candidate in the last seven days. Pollitrack reads the headlines; it does not judge them and they do not change the forecast.
The newest headlines about this race, refreshed twice a day.
This week: 59 stories name Brown, 54 name Husted, 14 name both.
- Jon Husted Breaks Silence on Donald Trump Gushing Over His 'Pile of Muscle' Backside: 'I Gotta Keep Working Out'
- Trump is now claiming that Jon Husted is one of the greatest football players ever
- Ohio Sen. Jon Husted reveals what he really thinks of Trump’s butt comments — as prez defends anatomical crack
- Jon Husted, Vivek Ramaswamy campaign in Greater Cincinnati with Election Day just a week away
- Google Jon Husted and see what comes up
- Obama rallies with Acton, Brown in Cleveland as both parties ramp up Ohio campaigns
Five county groups
How to read this: every county joins the group whose bellwether county it has moved most like since 2016. The color is the group's margin in the view you pick: where its bellwether lands if the polls are right, its 2024 Senate result, or, on election night, how far each county has shifted since 2024. Darker means a bigger lead: 15 points or more, 5 to 15, or under 5. Tap a group or a county to light up its group.
Every county joins the bellwether it has voted most like since 2016.
Pick a group to light up its counties.
500 possible election nights
How to read this: the forecast is replayed 500 times, each with a different random draw of its uncertainty. Each dot is five possible nights, stacked by the statewide margin in 1-point steps: blue dots are Brown wins and red dots are Husted wins. The more dots on one side of the tie line, the likelier that candidate wins.
The forecast replayed 500 times, with every county group free to miss.
Wins per 100 nights · each dot = 5 nights
The five bellwethers
How to read this: each row is one county, on a scale from a big Husted lead (left) to a big Brown lead (right). The amber mark is the tie line: if every part of Ohio shifted as much as this county did, a result there would mean a statewide tie. A dot to the right of it is good news for Brown, and to the left for Husted; the colored bar shows how far each county is from the tie line, and toward whom. The gray ticks are the 2024 and 2018 results. The dot is where the polling average points until results post, then the real result. Drag a dot, tap anywhere on a row, or use the arrow keys to try your own numbers; the dot clicks onto the marks when you get close.
Drag a dot, or pick a scenario, to see who wins Ohio.
Fine-tune the assumptions
County guides
Why each county was picked and what to watch.
Cleveland and Akron test
CuyahogaTie line: Brown +41.1 · Brown's home county, Cleveland
- 2024 Senate
- Brown +37.5
- 2024 President
- Harris +31.3
- 2018 Senate
- Brown +45.0
- Compared with Ohio
- 38–43 points more Democratic, every race since 2016
Why this county
Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) is where Brown lives and where Democrats bank their biggest lead. Its gap with the state is the steadiest of the five: between 38 and 43 points more Democratic in all nine statewide races since 2016. Its group is just Cuyahoga and Summit (Akron), about 15% of the statewide vote, and Brown won the pair by 30 in 2024. Summit works as a stand-in, but with it the model would have missed past statewide results by 0.7 points on average, compared with 0.26 with Cuyahoga.
What to look for
The tie line here is Brown +41: a result above it favors Brown, below it Husted. He won it by 45 in 2018, when he carried Ohio by 6.8, and by 37.5 in 2024, when he lost by 3.6. A margin in the low 40s means a close race; at 38 or less, Husted is probably ahead, and at 44 or more, Brown is probably ahead. The forecast reads Cuyahoga's margin, not its turnout. Turnout here fell from 71% in 2020 to 64% in 2024; if Cleveland's turnout looks low again, pick the "Like 2022" turnout pattern.
When results come in
Its early votes, three quarters of them mail ballots this year, should post soon after polls close at 7:30 pm. That first batch will be Brown's best number of the night. In 2022 Franklin County's first batch went 74–26 for the Democrat, who ended with about two-thirds there. Ohio publishes no results split by vote type, so the page has no Cuyahoga record of that drop and uses only the "How much more Republican Election Day votes will be" setting. Treat an early-only Cuyahoga reading as a ceiling. The board planned to finish counting around 1 am in 2024, after its November 2023 count ran to 4:40 am.
Signals so far
As of October 21 that was 25% fewer than at this point in 2024, a presidential year; statewide the drop was 35%, so Cuyahoga is holding up better than most of Ohio. 51% of its early voters last voted in a Democratic primary and 16% in a Republican one, compared with 36% and 14% of all its 2024 early voters. Summit County: 35% fewer than in 2024, with 40% Democratic primary voters to 17% Republican. Barack Obama is due to rally with Acton in Cleveland on October 24.
Best overall predictor
ButlerTie line: Husted +15.8 · leads the big metros and suburbs, 40% of the vote
- 2024 Senate
- Moreno +19.4
- 2024 President
- Trump +26.3
- 2018 Senate
- Renacci +18.1
- Compared with Ohio
- from 24.9 points more Republican (2018) to 15.8 (2024 Senate)
Why this county
Butler County (Hamilton, Middletown, West Chester) sits between Cincinnati and Dayton; Vance grew up in Middletown. It leads the largest group in the model: 14 counties including Franklin (Columbus), Hamilton (Cincinnati), Montgomery (Dayton), Delaware, Warren and Clermont, about 40% of the statewide vote. When the model searched for the five counties that best rebuild Ohio's last seven statewide results, Butler's swing matched this group best. As stand-ins, Warren would have missed by 0.33 points on average, Hamilton by 0.35 and Franklin by 0.49.
What to look for
The tie line here is Husted +16: a wider Husted margin favors Husted, a narrower one Brown. Moreno won it by 19.4. At Husted +15 or less, Brown is probably ahead; near Moreno's 19.4, Husted is probably ahead. Don't use Butler's 2018 result as a guide: Brown lost it by 18 that year and still won Ohio by 7, because the suburbs have moved toward Democrats since. Brown lost Butler by about the same amount in 2024 as in 2018, while his statewide margin fell 10 points. If Butler moves much more than Hamilton or Warren, switch this row to one of them.
When results come in
Early votes first, soon after 7:30 pm, then Election Day precincts. In 2020 Butler, Hamilton, Warren and Clermont posted updates every 15 minutes. Butler's early voters lean more Republican than the big cities' do, so its first batch should overstate Brown less than Cuyahoga's or Franklin's.
Signals so far
As of October 21 that was 44% fewer than at this point in 2024, the steepest drop of the five bellwethers (Ohio: 35% fewer). Counties record returned mail ballots at different speeds, so some of that gap may close. 25% of its early voters last voted in a Democratic primary and 35% in a Republican one, compared with 14% and 29% of all its 2024 early voters. Franklin County: 31% fewer than in 2024. Hamilton County: 36% fewer. Trump rallied in Vandalia, north of Dayton, on October 3.
Working-class swing test
ErieTie line: Husted +0.3 · a true bellwether, close to a tie
- 2024 Senate
- Moreno +3.9
- 2024 President
- Trump +14.1
- 2018 Senate
- Brown +10.0
- Compared with Ohio
- within 4 points of the state in every race since 2016
Why this county
Erie County (Sandusky) on Lake Erie has voted within 4 points of the statewide margin in every race since 2016, and within 0.3 points in 2024's Senate race. It leads 21 industrial and lakeshore counties including Lucas (Toledo), Stark (Canton), Lorain, Lake, Mahoning (Youngstown), Trumbull and Wood, about 23% of the statewide vote. This is where Brown's appeal to union and working-class voters mattered most: he won the group by 10 in 2018 and lost it by 6 in 2024, while Harris lost it by 15. Mahoning went from Brown +21 in 2018 to an even split in 2024.
What to look for
The tie line here is Husted +0.3, almost a tie: a Husted margin above it favors Husted, anything less Brown. Brown won it by 10 in 2018 and lost it by 3.9 in 2024. A Brown win of 3 or more means Brown is probably ahead in Ohio; a Husted margin of 4 or more, like 2024, means Husted is probably ahead. Lorain, the Democratic-leaning stand-in, has a tie line of Brown +8.4.
When results come in
Erie is small (about 39,000 votes in 2024), so its early votes post right after 7:30 pm and its precincts follow quickly. Like everywhere in Ohio, the early batch leans Democratic; the page marks Erie early-only until its first precinct reports and expects it to move toward Husted after that.
Signals so far
As of October 21 that was 28% fewer than at this point in 2024 (Ohio: 35% fewer). 31% of its early voters last voted in a Democratic primary and 26% in a Republican one, compared with 20% and 25% of all its 2024 early voters. Mahoning County was down only 10% from 2024, the smallest drop of any large Ohio county; Trump rallied there, in Youngstown, with Husted and Ramaswamy on October 12. Lorain County: 27% fewer.
Rural Ohio test
WayneTie line: Husted +27.1 · stands in for 41 rural and Appalachian counties
- 2024 Senate
- Moreno +30.7
- 2024 President
- Trump +39.3
- 2018 Senate
- Renacci +22.2
- Compared with Ohio
- 22–29 points more Republican since 2016
Why this county
41 rural and small-town counties cast about 18% of the Ohio vote, from Licking and Richland (Mansfield, Brown's hometown) to the Appalachian southeast. Moreno won them by 39 in 2024; Renacci won them by 23.5 in 2018. Every point either candidate gains there is worth about a sixth of a point statewide. Wayne County (Wooster, Orrville) has moved most like the group as a whole: as stand-ins, Licking would have missed by 0.32 points on average, Knox by 0.6 and Darke by 0.67.
What to look for
The tie line here is Husted +27: a wider Husted margin favors Husted, a narrower one Brown. Renacci won it by 22 against Brown in 2018. At Husted +33 or more, rural Ohio has moved further toward Republicans, and Husted is likely ahead unless Brown makes much bigger gains in the cities and suburbs. Brown ran 8.5 points ahead of Harris in Wayne in 2024; whether those crossover voters stay with him decides much of the rural vote. Licking County, east of Columbus near the New Albany data-center cluster, is the stand-in to pick if the fight over data centers and electric bills seems to be moving votes.
When results come in
Early votes soon after 7:30 pm, then precincts. Rural early voters are a smaller and more Republican slice than in the cities (in 2024 about a third of Wayne's early voters had a Republican primary record), so the early-to-final move here should be smaller than in Cuyahoga. Leaving this group out hurts the forecast a lot, so wait for Wayne before trusting a call.
Signals so far
As of October 21 that was 28% fewer than at this point in 2024 (Ohio: 35% fewer). 26% of its early voters last voted in a Democratic primary and 34% in a Republican one, compared with 15% and 33% of all its 2024 early voters. Licking County: 37% fewer than in 2024. Knox County: 38% fewer.
Small-city test
ClarkTie line: Husted +17.1 · Springfield, the bellwether that has shifted most since 2018
- 2024 Senate
- Moreno +20.7
- 2024 President
- Trump +29.4
- 2018 Senate
- Renacci +1.9
- Compared with Ohio
- from 8.7 points more Republican (2018 Senate) to 18.2 (2024 President)
Why this county
Clark County (Springfield), between Dayton and Columbus, leads the smallest group: 10 small-city and northwest farm counties including Allen (Lima), Muskingum (Zanesville), Seneca, Fulton and Williams, about 5% of the statewide vote. No bellwether has moved further from Brown. He nearly won Clark in 2018 (Renacci +1.9) and lost it by 20.7 in 2024, a 19-point drop while his statewide margin fell 10. Springfield's Haitian community, about 15,000 people, was at the center of Trump's 2024 debate claims; in June the Supreme Court let the administration end their temporary legal status, and Brown has called for an extension.
What to look for
The tie line here is Husted +17: a wider Husted margin favors Husted, a narrower one Brown. A margin near Moreno's 20.7 means the county is voting as it did in 2024; under 12, it is shifting toward Brown's 2018 showing. The group is small, so each point here is worth only about a twentieth of a point statewide: read it as a signal of how working-class voters outside the big metros are moving.
When results come in
Early votes soon after 7:30 pm, then precincts through the evening. Allen, Muskingum and Fulton are the stand-ins; all three were 31 points more Republican than Ohio in 2024's Senate race.
Signals so far
As of October 21 that was 38% fewer than at this point in 2024 (Ohio: 35% fewer). Its early voters split evenly by primary history, 32% Democratic and 32% Republican, compared with 19% and 32% of all its 2024 early voters. Allen County: 40% fewer than in 2024.
Timeline
When results usually arrive, Eastern time.
Early voting. Watch each group's turnout in the early voting tracker above; it refreshes every morning from the Secretary of State's file, which runs a day behind. Early in-person voting ends Sunday, November 1. The last day to request a mail ballot is October 27, and this year mail ballots must reach the county board by 7:30 pm on Election Day: a postmark no longer counts. More early voters this year last voted in a Democratic primary than in a Republican one, partly because May's Democratic Senate primary drew more votes than the Republican one.
Polls close; early votes post first. Ohio counties prepare early and mail ballots before Election Day so they can report them right after 7:30; in 2020 the state required them by 8 pm. This batch leans heavily Democratic: in 2022 Franklin County's first batch went 74–26 for Ryan, who ended with about two-thirds there and lost the state by 6. Expect Brown to lead early almost everywhere. In Live data mode the page marks counties with no precincts in as early-only and expects them to move toward Husted, but Ohio has no county-by-county record of how far.
Election Day precincts. Counties add precincts through the evening; in 2020 Butler, Hamilton, Warren and Clermont posted every 15 minutes. Margins move toward Husted as they do, and the forecast's early-vote adjustment for each county shrinks as its precincts report. Mail ballots that arrived on Election Day are counted tonight too.
Most counties finish. In 2024 Decision Desk HQ called the Senate race at 10:58 pm and the Associated Press at 11:28 pm, with over 90% of the vote counted. Cuyahoga is usually among the last big counties: its board aimed to finish around 1 am in 2024, after a November 2023 count that ran to 4:40 am. Every county's election-night count must include all eligible Election Day and early ballots it has.
Provisional ballots wait. Provisional voters have until Saturday, November 7 to show ID or fix a problem at their county board, and military and overseas ballots can still arrive through that day. Other mail ballots get no grace period this year; in 2024 about 9,500 arrived in the four days after the election and counted. After 2024's election night, 137,879 provisional ballots were outstanding statewide, about 2% of the vote. The forecast doesn't add any of these. If the race is within a point, the final count can move it.
The official count. County boards start the official canvass between November 8 and 18 and must finish by November 24; the Secretary of State then certifies the statewide result (December 2 in 2024). If the final margin is under a quarter of a percentage point, about 10,000 votes at 2022's turnout, Ohio law orders an automatic recount.
Times are Eastern time. Counties post early votes first, then Election Day results. The method in six steps, then its track record on past races.
- All 88 counties are grouped by how they have moved relative to the statewide margin across nine statewide races (2016–2024). Each group is tied to one bellwether county.
- When a bellwether reports, its change from its 2024 Senate margin (Brown vs. Moreno) is applied to every county in its group, and each group is weighted by its share of the vote.
- Early-vote readings are moved toward the expected final count. That uses each county's 2022–2024 early-versus-final record plus the 2026 Election Day tilt, scaled by how much is still uncounted. Counties not yet in borrow the average change of those that are, pulled slightly toward the polls.
- Uncertainty combines the minimum uncertainty, how much of each county is still uncounted, and which counties haven't reported. The win chance and the 500 simulated nights both come from that.
- Until results post, the forecast is the polling average minus an allowance for how Ohio polls have leaned (2 points off Brown unless you change it), with a 5-point spread, the typical size of a final Ohio poll-average miss since 2018. Where early votes are coming from trims nothing off it by default: each point the early electorate leans more Democratic than at the same point in 2024, measured by county, counts for the weight you set under "Fine-tune the assumptions", and in 2022 and 2024, measured against the election two years earlier, that lean did not predict how the polls missed. The five counties only start to matter on election night.
- Scheduled jobs in the cloud pull the Ohio Secretary of State's absentee voter export and a Wikipedia poll table every morning and afternoon. On election night they check the Ohio Secretary of State's results every few minutes. They write to this page's data store, which updates open copies of the page without a reload.
Track record: past races predicted from these five counties alone
| Race predicted | Baseline race | Actual | Model | Miss |
|---|
These misses flatter the model. The five counties were picked by searching for the set that best fits these same seven races. Tested on races it had not seen, the same search missed by about 0.85 points, more than in Texas or Georgia. If a tie falls inside the likely range, treat the race as a toss-up.
What's different in 2026
The model is built on 2016–2024. Here is what could make this race break from those patterns, and how the model handles each.
| Factor | What it could do | How the model handles it |
|---|---|---|
| A former senator against an appointed one | DeWine appointed Husted, then lieutenant governor, to Vance's seat in January 2025; he has never faced Ohio's voters for the Senate, and the winner serves only until January 3, 2029. Brown was Ohio's other senator from 2007 until he lost to Moreno by 3.6 in 2024. In a September Bowling Green State University poll, 25% of likely voters thought Brown was still a senator. Brown had raised $61.7 million through September 30 to Husted's $19.2 million. He is running on data centers and electric bills, and on Husted's ties to House Bill 6, the FirstEnergy bribery scandal; Husted had to testify at the trial of two former FirstEnergy executives. | The starting point is Brown's own 2024 race, not the presidential race, so every tie line asks how much better Brown does than he did two years ago. For a tie he needs to gain 3.6 points statewide over 2024; to win the way he did in 2018, about 10. |
| Brown wins Trump voters | In 2024 Brown ran 7.5 points ahead of Harris statewide and ahead of her in all five bellwethers: by 10 in Erie, 9 in Clark and Wayne, and 7 in Butler. In 2018 he won by 6.8 on the same day DeWine won the governor's race by 3.7. | Because the base race already had heavy ticket-splitting, each bellwether's swing measures change among Brown's own voters. In What-if mode, enter Senate margins, not governor's race or presidential margins. |
| A midterm with Trump in the White House, and a governor's race on the same ballot | Trump's job rating among Ohio likely voters is 43% approve, 55% disapprove (Marist, October 15–18), and the same poll has Acton ahead of Ramaswamy by 7 for governor and Brown ahead by 4. Trump rallied in Vandalia on October 3 and in Youngstown with Husted and Ramaswamy on October 12; Obama is due in Cleveland with Acton on October 24. The only statewide question is Issue 3, which would write the photo ID rule into Ohio's constitution. | Pick a turnout pattern under "Fine-tune the assumptions": like 2022 or like 2018. Beyond that, turnout shows up in each bellwether's margin. Issue 3 and the governor's race aren't modeled separately. |
| Ohio polls have leaned toward Democrats | Final poll averages understated the Republican by about 7 points in the 2020 presidential race (Trump +0.9 in the average, +8.0 in the result) and about 2 points in the 2024 Senate race (Moreno +1.7 in the RealClearPolitics average, +3.6 in the result). In 2016 the last three polls had Trump up 2; he won by 8.1. In 2018 Cordray led most October polls and DeWine won by 3.7. Not every miss went that way: Brown's final 2018 polls had him up 6 to 19 and he won by 6.8, and 270toWin's final 2022 Senate average had Vance up 7.8 against a 6.1-point win. | Until results post, the forecast starts from the polling average with a default allowance of 2 points off Brown and a 5-point spread. Ohio's record isn't built into that default yet: if you expect the polls to understate Husted again, move "How far off the polls may be" to the right. On election night the real county results replace the polls. |
| Early votes count first, and they lean Democratic | Ohio posts early and mail ballots right after polls close, then Election Day precincts. In 2022 Franklin County's first batch went 74–26 for Ryan; he finished with about two-thirds there, a move of about 15 points toward Vance. Ohio publishes no results split by vote type, so there's no county record of how big that move is. | A bellwether with only early votes counted is expected to move toward Husted by the "How much more Republican Election Day votes will be" setting alone, shrinking as its precincts report, and it gets wider uncertainty. Ohio's real moves can be far larger than that setting, so treat early-only readings, especially Cuyahoga's, as Brown's high-water mark. |
| Who is voting early | Through October 21, 838,018 Ohioans had voted early, 35% fewer than at this point in 2024, a presidential year; the 489,141 who voted in person already approach the 549,771 who did so in all of 2022. 33% of this year's early voters last voted in a Democratic primary and 27% in a Republican one; in 2024's whole early vote it was 21% and 26%. Some of that is labels: May's Democratic Senate primary drew 797,000 votes to the unopposed Husted's 736,000, while in 2024 Republicans had the contested Senate primary. | The adjustment that trims or grows the poll allowance based on where early votes come from needs each county's count at this point in 2024 in the form the page reads. Ohio's feed doesn't supply that yet, so the adjustment is not applied yet. Primary-party labels aren't used in the forecast. |
| Mail ballots must arrive by Election Day | A law signed in December 2025 ended Ohio's four-day grace period: mail ballots must reach the county board by 7:30 pm on November 3. About 9,500 ballots arrived in that window in 2024. Military and overseas ballots still get four extra days, and provisional voters have four days to show ID; 137,879 provisional ballots were outstanding after 2024's election night. A statewide margin under a quarter of a point triggers an automatic recount. | Not modeled: late military and overseas ballots, provisional ballots and recounts. The forecast is built from the election-night count, which by law includes every eligible early and Election Day ballot the counties have. |
| Two minor candidates on the ballot | Greg Levy, an independent who belongs to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Libertarian Bill Redpath took 5% and 3% in the Bowling Green State University poll this month. | Margins are measured as a share of all votes cast, so the third-party share needs no separate adjustment. |
- County returns 2016–2024: the county tables in Wikipedia's article on each race (from the Ohio Secretary of State canvass; each within 0.01% of the certified statewide count), and OpenElections Ohio for the 2016 Senate race. The Secretary of State's own past-results files block automated downloads.
- County boundaries: us-atlas (Census cartographic boundaries)
- Early-vote turnout: the Ohio Secretary of State's absentee voter export, saved daily from a browser
- Polling average: Wikipedia, 2026 United States Senate special election in Ohio (poll table)
- Election-night results: Ohio Secretary of State election-night results
- In the news: headlines and links from Google News, GDELT and the state's own news outlets, read twice a day. Pollitrack never fetches or stores the articles themselves.