The 2024 United States presidential election in Ohio was held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Ohio voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote. Ohio had 17 electoral votes in the Electoral College, following reapportionment due to the 2020 United States census in which the state lost a seat.
Republican Donald Trump ultimately won Ohio for the third straight election, defeating Democrat Kamala Harris by 11.21%, the widest presidential margin of victory in the state since fellow Republican Ronald Reagan's 18.76% in 1984. Trump became the third presidential candidate to carry Ohio three times, following Franklin D. Roosevelt (the only previous candidate with three consecutive victories here) and Richard Nixon. Prior to the election, all major news organizations considered Ohio a state Trump would once again win, or a likely red state. A former bellwether and swing state, Ohio has not voted for a Democratic nominee for president since Barack Obama in 2012. No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio. Since 2012, Ohio has been trending towards the GOP. The state is currently moderately to strongly Republican. Trump's 2024 statewide victory was the first double-digit win at the presidential level for Ohio since Republican George H. W. Bush's 10.85% in 1988. Ohio was the home state of Trump's running mate JD Vance.
The election was held concurrently with a U.S. Senate race in Ohio, in which Republican nominee Bernie Moreno unseated Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown, which was partly credited to Trump's overall success in the state. Additionally, an attempt to establish a redistricting commission (with the goal of ending gerrymandering) was proposed on the state's ballot but was defeated. Trump's denouncement of this is also perceived as having had an influence on this, amongst a number of other factors.
Primary elections
Democratic primary
The Ohio Democratic primary was held on March 19, 2024, alongside the Arizona, Illinois, and Kansas primaries.
President Joe Biden won every county and 87.06% of the vote, but, despite having already dropped out, U.S. Representative Dean Phillips won three delegates. Congressman Phillips was still on the ballot on election day, and gained his delegates by meeting the 15% threshold of votes needed to receive a delegate in a congressional district in the state's 2nd, 6th, and 14th districts.
Republican primary
The Ohio Republican primary was held on March 19, 2024, alongside primaries in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois.
General election
Democratic ballot access controversy
Due to the Democratic National Convention taking place on August 19, 2024, which occurred more than a week after the August 7 deadline to certify a presidential candidate for office, under ordinary rules, the eventual Democratic nominee would be disqualified from the ballot. Efforts to create an emergency fix had stalled in the Ohio Legislature. The state House adjourned without considering a fix on May 8. On May 21, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose provided an update confirming that efforts to rectify the situation were at an impasse, as the state legislature would not take up the issue and the Ohio Democratic Party had offered no "legally acceptable remedy" up to that point. He further clarified that if the party did not work toward a solution themselves, their presidential nominee would not be listed on the November ballot.
On May 23, Governor Mike DeWine called for a special legislative session and tasked lawmakers with ensuring Biden's inclusion on the ballot. Republican leaders in the state senate, with DeWine's support, hoped to pass a bill that will tie solving the ballot access issue to a ban on foreign contributions toward ballot measure efforts in the state. Ohio Democratic Party chair Elizabeth Walters and state House minority leader Allison Russo had signaled their opposition to the ban, which was described as a poison pill amendment; a spokesperson for DeWine later said that a bill dealing only with the ballot access issue could also be considered.
After the state legislature appeared to be unable to address the issue, the Democratic Party announced on May 28 that a virtual roll call nomination, similar to the process used by the party in 2020, would take place two weeks before the 2024 Democratic National Convention to nominate Biden and meet Ohio's deadline. Nonetheless, the Ohio legislature passed a bill on June 1 extending the deadline to August 23, which DeWine signed on June 2. However, because the law did not take effect until September 1, Democrats continued with the roll call to meet the original deadline.
Green Party ballot access controversy
Green Party nominee Jill Stein also appeared on the ballot, though votes for her did not count, due to her nominating a running mate after the state deadline. Citing the law that allowed Joe Biden to be nominated, the Green Party attempted to use this exact ruling in their favor to swap VP candidates. However, VP candidate Anita Rios testified in federal court that she had not signed the withdraw form, and that someone unknown to the Stein campaign had submitted a forgery of her signature. The Green Party argued that the Secretary of State should never have accepted the withdraw letter, saying the signature of Rios was a PDF copy from her 2014 governorship candidacy paperwork. The Stein campaign stated that a letter to the Ohio Secretary of State requesting removal from the ballot was "fraudulent".
A hearing to restore ballot access for Stein was scheduled for October 22, in which the federal courts abstained from making a ruling on the case. The Stein campaign and the Ohio Green Party announced that they would continue the lawsuit to make the votes for Stein-Rios in Ohio count. The court, however, ruled the withdraw of the candidate as legitimate and the Secretary of State ordered county Board of Elections to no count any vote for Stein.
Polling
Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris
Aggregate polls
Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris vs. Cornel West vs. Jill Stein vs. Chase Oliver
Results
By congressional district
Trump won 11 of 15 congressional districts, including one that elected a Democrat.
Analysis
A heavily populated Midwestern state located mainly in the Rust Belt, with the southern portion of the state having cultural influence from the Upper South and Bible Belt, Ohio had been considered a vital bellwether state for decades and had been decided by single digits at the presidential level since 1992, but has been trending towards the political right in recent years and is now considered a moderately red state, similarly to Florida and Alaska. The state voted significantly more Republican than the U.S. at large when Donald Trump carried the state by just over eight points in the previous two elections, despite polls showing a tight race in both cycles, especially in 2020, when the state backed the losing presidential candidate for the first time in 60 years. This was the first time since 1988 that the state voted Republican in three consecutive presidential elections, and the first time since 2012 that it voted for the winner of the national popular vote.
The GOP's success in Ohio during the 2022 midterms further testified to the state's rightward shift and the end of its swing-state status at the presidential level. However, Democratic policies saw success in 2023 when a majority of voters voted against raising the threshold for voter-led initiatives to 60%, and then voted in favor of enshrining abortion rights and legalizing recreational marijuana. Ohio was widely expected to be carried again by Trump in the November general election. JD Vance's selection was seen as a strategic effort to bolster support in the Midwest (especially his home state) and among Trump supporters. Though Kamala Harris lost the state by 11.2%, Ohio was 9.7% to the right of the nation, marginally less than its position in the 2020 presidential election when Joe Biden lost the state by 8% and it was 12.5% to the right of the nation.
Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gathered enough signatures to appear on the ballot.
The election was held concurrently with a U.S. Senate race in Ohio, in which Republican nominee Bernie Moreno unseated Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown; this was partly credited to Trump's overall success in the state.
County swings
Although no counties flipped, all but three counties in the state shifted rightward. Appalachian Ohio in particular shifted further to the right, with only Athens County voting for Harris.
Mahoning County voted for Trump by over 9%, shifting rightward by 7%, the largest shift in the state. Mahoning County also voted for Bernie Moreno by 0.2% in the concurrent U.S. Senate election. The county had voted Democratic from 1976 to 2016, even voting for Walter Mondale in 1984, despite Mondale losing 49 states that year.
Only three counties in Ohio shifted leftward, including Delaware County, the highest-income county in Ohio. This does support exit polls showing Harris improved among higher-income voters, particularly White women with college degrees.
Harris lost Delaware county by less than 7%, the closest a Democratic nominee has come to winning the county since 1932, with Delaware County voting to the left of the state. Sherrod Brown nearly won Delaware County, losing it by less than 2%, also to the left of the state.