Mirroring national trends, on Tuesday night Portage County shifted from Republican to Democratic in many of its statewide and local races, after the majority of the county voted for a Republican president in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
In the governor’s race, Amy Acton won 51.2% of the county’s vote, with 52.3% of the vote statewide. And while Sherrod Brown came in under half the votes in Portage County, he still won the county with 48.5% (Jon Husted had 45.8%) and 50.0% statewide.
As with other parts of the country, local Democratic candidates also won as the county shifted left: Democrat Jenny Adams beat out incumbent Republican Mike Tinlin with 51.7% of votes, and Democrat Mike Roberto won in the State Senate 27th District, which includes all of Portage County as well as parts of Summit and Geauga counties.
Not all races turned blue: David Joyce won reelection to the 14th Congressional District, which was redistricted in 2025 to no longer include Portage County’s bluest pieces while still including the rural, deep red corner of northeast Ohio. Incumbent State Representative Heidi Workman (R-Rootstown) is leading the vote count in a tight 72nd House District race over Kent City Councilman Jeff Clapper, in a district that includes all of Portage County except for Streetsboro, Aurora, and Mantua Township (Acton won 1,210 more votes than Ramaswamy in this portion of the county). Clapper was behind by 701 votes according to the Portage County election night report.
Overall, Portage County moved left: all precincts had a larger percent of voters in favor of Acton in 2026 than Trump in 2024. While this followed a national wave of Democratic victories, local issues also appeared to play a role. Some of the precincts with the largest 2024 to 2026 swings were located near the proposed data center in Shalersville. This area still voted majority Republican, but less so than in previous years.
While most City of Ravenna precincts had lower voter turnout than the county average, the city saw some of the greatest increases in turnout, and greatest swings toward Democratic candidates. Acton received more votes than Ramaswamy in all ten of Ravenna’s precincts whereas only two were won by Kamala Harris in 2024. The greatest swing in Portage County was in Ravenna’s Precinct 1B where the vote changed from 56.6% for Trump in 2024 to 57.7% for Acton.
National turnout is estimated at 49.42%, 58.1% in Ohio, and 61.7% in Portage County, up five percentage points since the last midterms in 2022. But this turnout was uneven geographically: in some traditionally rural Republican parts of the county there was a decline in turnout. Most of the county increased, with the greatest increases in cities and suburbs. Determining change in turnout and political party in some Kent precincts is complicated by precinct boundary changes made in 2025 that moved ward boundaries and eliminated precincts 6C, 6D, and 3D.