Ohio's Entire Executive Branch Is Turning Over in 2026. Here's What You Need to Know About the Secretary of State Race.

Every single statewide executive office in Ohio is open in 2026. The governor, attorney general, auditor, treasurer, and secretary of state are all term-limited out. Ohio voters are essentially restaffing the entire executive branch in a single election cycle, and the Secretary of State race deserves far more attention than it is getting.

The Secretary of State oversees elections across Ohio's 88 county boards of elections, certifies results, runs the Ohio Ballot Board (which decides how ballot initiatives get worded for voters), registers business entities, and manages public records access. The office has been held since 2019 by Republican Frank LaRose, who is now running for state auditor. His departure has created a five-candidate, three-primary race that reveals the fault lines in both parties.

The Republican Primary: Establishment vs. Outsider

Robert Sprague, Ohio's current Treasurer, is the party establishment's choice. He has served as Treasurer since 2019, previously served in the Ohio House from 2011 to 2018, and has a background in engineering and consulting (Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill MBA, Ernst and Young). The Ohio Republican Party endorsed him in this race while staying out of their other down-ballot primaries.

Sprague's candidacy carries some baggage. He originally announced a run for governor in January 2025, filed paperwork, then dropped out less than three weeks later to run for Secretary of State instead, endorsing Vivek Ramaswamy for governor. Critics have pointed to this as evidence of the "musical chairs" dynamic in Ohio Republican politics, where term-limited officials simply rotate offices. There are also questions from his time as Treasurer: a 2022 lawsuit alleged his office failed to properly track employer tax withholding amounts, which the Cleveland.com editorial board called a potential "systemic failure." His campaign has raised over $1 million.

His primary opponent, Marcell Strbich, is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel with 20 years in military intelligence, 117 combat missions, and over 1,200 combat hours. After his military career, Strbich became a full-time election integrity advocate, co-authored House Bill 552, and won an Ohio Supreme Court case on poll worker citizenship review training. His platform includes requiring voter ID and proof of citizenship to register and vote, eliminating electronic vote-casting machines, ending universal mail-in voting, and announcing all results by midnight on election night. The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State has argued these measures would disenfranchise eligible voters.

In a notable moment, Strbich publicly accused the state party of trying to pressure him out of the race by offering him a paid job in the Secretary of State's office. He refused, posting on social media: "I am not for sale." His campaign has raised about $364,000, mostly from individual donors and family members.

The Democratic Primary: Insider vs. Outsider

Allison Russo, a four-term state representative from Upper Arlington and former House Minority Leader, is the institutional favorite. She was the first Democrat in a decade to flip a central Ohio House seat (2018), holds a Doctor of Public Health from George Washington University, and has over 20 years of health policy experience. Her legislative accomplishments include co-sponsoring dozens of bills signed into law, contributing to the Fair School Funding Plan, and helping defeat the 2023 Issue 1 attempt to raise the constitutional amendment threshold.

Her most significant vulnerability is a September 2023 vote on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, where she voted unanimously with Republicans to approve state legislative maps that gave the GOP an estimated 65% of seats. Democratic activists and voting-rights advocates have criticized this vote, with some calling it "disqualifying." A Cincinnati Democratic lawyer argued the bipartisan vote was weaponized by Republicans to defeat the 2024 redistricting reform amendment. Russo has defended the vote as the best of two bad options. She also faces an ongoing federal employment discrimination lawsuit (Forhan v. Russo) filed by a former House Democratic Caucus attorney.

On the offensive side, Russo has accused Secretary of State LaRose of sharing private voter registration data for nearly 8 million Ohioans (including partial Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers) with the U.S. Department of Justice, and introduced the Ohio Privacy Act in response.

Her challenger, Bryan Hambley, is a Warren County hematologist-oncologist at UC Health who specializes in leukemia and bone marrow transplants. Hambley is a political newcomer driven into the race by LaRose's handling of ballot language, particularly the 2024 Citizens Not Politicians amendment, which would have created an independent redistricting commission. That amendment was rejected by 53.7% of voters, and Hambley argues the ballot language, not the merits, sank it. He has pledged to accept no corporate PAC money and has called Russo's redistricting vote "disqualifying." His top priority is ending gerrymandering.

The Libertarian Candidate

Tom Pruss, a Toledo small business owner (NorthCoast Print Mail Marketing since 2017) and Vice President of the Northwest Ohio Polish Cultural Center, is running as the Libertarian candidate. His platform focuses on equal ballot access for all candidates, opposition to unnecessary signature hurdles, transparent elections, and streamlining business filings. He previously ran for the Toledo School Board, Lucas County Clerk of Courts, and Congress in 2024.

The Bigger Picture

This race does not exist in a vacuum. President Trump recently issued an executive order creating a federal list of eligible mail voters and designating the U.S. Postal Service as a gatekeeper for which voters states can send ballots to. Ohio's Secretary of State office has said the order is unlikely to affect the upcoming primary, but whoever wins this race will navigate the tension between federal directives and Ohio's election procedures for at least four years.

Meanwhile, the FirstEnergy bribery trial, which prosecutors called the biggest public corruption scandal in Ohio history, ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked (reportedly 8-4 to 10-2 in favor of conviction). A retrial is expected. And state officials voted to open more than 8,700 acres of publicly owned land, including a state park and wildlife preserves, to oil and gas fracking.

Ohio voter registration for the May 5 primary closes April 6. Early voting starts April 7.

I covered all of this in detail on the latest episode of Purple Political Breakdown, including a conversation with independent gubernatorial candidate Tim Grady about the future of independent politics in Ohio.

Full episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-ohios-democracy-for-sale-secretary-of-state/id1626987640?i=1000759265004

Sources:

• Dayton Daily News: "Election 2026: Ohio treasurer, local vet vie for GOP secretary of state nomination" (April 2026)
• Dayton Daily News: "Election 2026: Two Democrats vie for secretary of state nomination" (April 2026)
• Signal Cleveland: "Ohio's Allison Russo criticized for GOP redistricting vote" (September 2025)
• Ohio.News: "As the Republican party endorses secretary of state candidate, see who has raised more" (February 2026)
• Ohio Democrats/Cleveland.com: "Cleveland.com Editorial Board Calls Out Robert Sprague for Potential 'Systemic Failure'" (July 2022)
• Wikipedia: Allison Russo, Robert Sprague, 2026 Ohio Secretary of State election
• Ohio Capital Journal: "Here are the candidates running for Ohio statewide office in 2026" (February 2026)
• Ohio.News: "Russo says that LaRose shared non-public voter information, LaRose pushes back" (April 2026)
• Democratic Association of Secretaries of State: "Ohio 2026"
• Ballotpedia: Ohio Secretary of State election, 2026
• Ideastream/WVXU: "Bryan Hambley is Ohio's first '26 Democratic candidate for Secretary of State" (January 2025)
• Spectrum News 1: "Ohio treasurer drops bid for governor to run for secretary of state" (February 2025)