Ohio Democrats had a tough time recruiting candidates for the 2026 midterms after years of election losses. 

But they’ve still ended up with a primary contest for Ohio Secretary of State that bears the hallmarks of a competitive race, pitting a first-time candidate against one of the state’s more accomplished Democrats. 

After launching his campaign early, Cincinnati cancer doctor Hambley has gained traction with state party insiders. He’s done so through a mix of active campaigning and strong fundraising – visiting 78 counties and, according to him, raising nearly $1 million, a figure that includes a nearly $200,000 personal loan. Former Gov. Ted Celeste endorsed Hambley last week, becoming the latest current or former elected Democrat to do so, and the state party opted last month to remain neutral in the race.

“Everyone here knows that we need a change,” Hambley said at a voter forum packed with liberal activists in Columbus earlier this month.

State Rep. Allison Russo, an Upper Arlington Democrat who previously led the Ohio House Democrats, meanwhile, says she’s made up for lost time after entering the race eight months after Hambley.

She’s racked up organized labor endorsements and is touting her experience fighting with Republicans in Columbus. 

“We are not at a moment in time for an office of this significance in the statewide ticket where we can afford to have someone who’s on a learning curve,” Russo said in an interview. 

The contest has become a test of competing arguments within the party: whether Democrats are better served by a political outsider or an experienced officeholder. Voters will decide in the May 5 primary.

A similar insider-outsider dynamic also exists in the Republican primary between state Treasurer Robert Sprague and Marcell Strbich, a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer, although the Ohio Republican Party has backed Sprague in that race, greatly increasing his chances of winning. 

The Ohio Secretary of State is a key battleground for both parties, since it serves as the state’s chief elections officer. The role has become more politicized in recent years as President Donald Trump has sought to impose new restrictions on mail voting, which he claims is susceptible to fraud, even though documented cases of voter fraud are exceedingly rare.

The office’s duties include overseeing election administration, issuing guidance to county boards and writing ballot language for statewide issues, an increasingly important political battleground in Ohio, and serving on the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

The office also manages the state’s campaign finance system and business filings.

Hambley builds grassroots campaign

Hambley launched his campaign in January 2025, just months after Democrats were left decimated and demoralized by the November presidential election. A cancer doctor who works for the University of Cincinnati health system, he attracted little attention outside of Cincinnati. In his campaign launch statement, he cited in part the redistricting reform amendment that voters rejected in the November 2024 election as inspiring him to run.

Hambley was involved with that political fight, running a network of Southwest Ohio health workers who promoted the amendment. He got his first introduction to politics a decade before that, organizing opposition in Cleveland to Trump’s “Muslim ban” ahead of the city’s hosting of the 2016 Republican National Convention.

As other Democrats deliberated over whether to run, Hambley developed his campaign by working off the list of hundreds of thousands of voters who signed the petitions for the 2024 amendment. He’s also amassed support by holding hundreds of small events around the state – 360, by his count. Hambley’s message includes emphasizing his background growing up on a small farm and the trusted role doctors play in society. He’s campaigned around the state in a Jeep, like another Democratic physician seeking statewide office, Dr. Amy Acton, the party’s presumptive nominee for governor. 

“I absolutely believe, with a caregiver background running on care and empathy, especially this year, especially against these opponents, is the right way,” Hambley said during an April 11 voter forum in Columbus.

Russo makes a case for experience

Russo, who also works as a health care researcher, launched her campaign in August after being privately linked to a possible run for lieutenant governor. 

She won her current seat in November 2018 in her first run for elected office, and was one of several women candidates to flip previously Republican-held suburban seats. Since then, she’s built relationships with Democrats around the state, in part through an unsuccessful special election campaign in 2021. At a November 2024 election night event that otherwise was extraordinarily bleak for state Democrats, she touted how Democrats flipped two additional Republican-held seats in Franklin County, ending Republicans’ ability to pass referendum-proof legislation. 

From the beginning, Russo has emphasized her experience dealing with Republicans in Columbus. 

“Having been in the arena, having been in some of the toughest fights in terms of attacks on direct democracy, attacks on voting, attacks on our redistricting process and navigating through a very broken redistricting process, that experience I think is critical,” Russo said in an interview.

Russo’s experience should give her an advantage in fundraising, given the opportunity she’s had to network as a Democratic legislative leader and a former candidate in a 2021 congressional race.

But in a state disclosure filed in January, Hambley said he had $546,000 in cash on hand, more than double what Russo reported at the time. He’s started putting his campaign cash to work – launching TV ads that subtly criticize Russo for accepting corporate political action committee money as a Democratic legislative leader. 

“We’re going to be ramping up in the next couple weeks,” he said in an interview.

Russo declined to share her fundraising numbers, saying she’ll do so when she files her disclosure later this month. Even though Hambley got an eight-month head start on the race, Russo said she’s visited 76 counties, just under Hambley’s 78.

She said her advertising plan involves leaning on social media, and likened buying TV ads during a primary election to “lighting money on fire.” She dismissed the idea that the race is competitive, saying her internal polling shows her with a significant lead. She said it also shows there are many undecided voters, but she thinks they’ll gravitate toward the more experienced candidate.

“I think all of this leads me right into the general election. And that is where my eye is focused. It is winning this general election in November,” Russo said.

Few policy differences 

The two candidates don’t have much difference on policy. Both say they want to expand voting rights while opposing Donald Trump’s attempts to restrict mail voting. Their main points of difference largely come down to their professional backgrounds.

But Hambley has leaned into two lines of attack, which both reflect Russo’s practical experience in politics. 

First, Hambley has attacked Russo over her 2023 vote with Republicans to approve the current state legislative maps. The vote, which followed a lengthy court battle that Republicans ultimately won, locked in maps for the rest of the decade that will favor the GOP to win between three-fifths and two-thirds of Ohio’s House seats, to the disappointment of activists who view the maps as gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. 

“Voting for gerrymandered maps is disqualified if you want to be Secretary of State,” Hambley said at the Columbus voter forum.

Second, Hambley has attacked Russo for accepting money from corporate PACs during her tenure as state House minority leader. He also attacked her for getting endorsed by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, which Hambley called a “MAGA group” in a social media video. 

In response, Russo said she supports campaign-finance reform. But, she said her job as a Democratic legislative leader was to help elect Democrats.

“I want real solutions. Not a bumper-sticker slogan that makes us all feel good,” Russo said.

In an interview, Russo also said some of Hambley’s stances could hurt him in a general election. 

Hambley has pledged to campaign in 2027 for a new redistricting reform amendment – which would continue the politicization of the office by current Secretary of State Frank LaRose. In 2024, he endorsed and campaigned for President Donald Trump, after previously arguing that secretaries of state should avoid political campaigning to prevent a perception of bias.

“My primary opponent misunderstands what the job actually is and misunderstands what the role of [secretary of state] should be,” Russo said.

For his part, Hambley has argued Democrats need to confront difficult truths. 

“People don’t like us. People don’t like the average Democrat in Ohio,” Hambley said during a March 5 candidate forum in Erie County. “It is a huge problem for us.