Cordray Loses To DeWine: Ohio Governor Election Results

Mike DeWine will be the next governor of Ohio, according to the state's unofficial vote count. The contentious race between DeWine, the Republican, and Richard Cordray was called at about 11 p.m.

DeWine held a 2,129,914 to 1,920,980 votes lead over Cordray. About 96 percent of Ohio's voting precincts have reported in.

DeWine thanked voters on Tuesday night and said he was ready to get to work. His victory near the top of the Ohio ticket helped pave the way for a downticket sweep for Republicans, who won Ohio attorney general, auditor, secretary of state, and treasurer.

Polls closed in Ohio at 7:30 p.m. and the unofficial vote tallies began rolling in shortly thereafter. Turnout appears to be up over the last midterm election in 2014. Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in Ohio, broke its 2014 midterm turnout numbers by 2 p.m. and sailed past its 2010 turnout numbers by 5 p.m.

Results came in waves as different polling locations began tallying their count. Some regions may have been slowed by the widespread power outages that hit Northeast Ohio on Tuesday afternoon. All voting was done on paper ballots, so no one was turned away on Tuesday.

Both Cordray and DeWine, and their respective parties, had a lot to lose in this election. Democrats have barely had control of the Ohio Statehouse over the past three decades, and Republicans were hoping to further solidify their control of the Buckeye State.

Hours before the polls closed, Cordray made a last-minute appeal to working class voters. "Today, workers get to send a message that they’re tired of being left out and left behind. Mike DeWine keeps pushing an agenda that favors the big corporations above all. We are ready for change," he said on social media.

DeWine, on the other hand, said his Columbus headquarters made more than 87,000 phone calls on Tuesday alone and then shared photos of his grandchildren campaigning on his behalf. He urged Ohioans to get to the polls before 7:30 p.m.

In the run-up to Tuesday, both Republicans and Democrats brought in their biggest stars to campaign. Former President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, musician John Legend, and others stumped on Cordray's behalf. President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Governor John Kasich have all worked hard to get DeWine elected.

On Monday, during an election eve rally in Cleveland, Trump took aim at Cordray. He said the Democrat briefly served in his administration and said he was a socialist. He became even more blunt as he went on, eventually saying, "He's a bad person who would do a terrible job."

In many ways, Trump embraced the spotlight of the midterms and has accepted that Tuesday's results will likely be a referendum on his administration and its performance. DeWine, as he stood on stage with Trump Monday afternoon, seemed a bit player in his own campaign, if only for a moment.

Here's where everything stood before the election: RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight both had the race between Cordray and DeWine as tight, though it was leaning slightly toward the Democrat. RCP's aggregation of recent polls have Cordray up by about 4.7 points, whereas FiveThirtyEight has Cordray receiving 49.5 percent of the vote, to DeWine's 48.6.

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