Ohio Secretary of State Race Set for Showdown Between Allison Russo and Robert Sprague

The battle for Ohio’s Secretary of State is shaping up as a high-stakes contest between two very different visions for election integrity. On Tuesday night, the Associated Press projected that state Representative Allison Russo secured the Democratic nomination, defeating oncologist Bryan Hambley, while Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague clinched the Republican nod over Marcell Strbich.

Russo, who has served in the Ohio House since 2019 and led the House Democratic caucus from 2022 to 2025, has been a consistent critic of the Republican-controlled Ohio Redistricting Commission. Alongside Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, she opposed nearly every gerrymandered map the GOP pushed through. Though she ultimately voted for the latest district maps after GOP threats of even worse maps, Russo made clear she views her experience on the commission as a tough lesson in the need for stronger democratic safeguards.

“I’m prepared to use the bully pulpit of the Secretary of State’s Office to act as a guardrail against overreach from the legislature or the president,” Russo said, signaling her intent to push back against authoritarian impulses that have plagued Ohio’s political landscape.

Her primary opponent, Bryan Hambley, a cancer doctor with no prior political experience, conceded early and endorsed Russo’s “vision for democracy which returns the power of the vote to the people of Ohio.” Hambley’s concession underscored a unified Democratic front aiming to protect voting rights and democratic norms in the state.

On the Republican side, Sprague’s campaign leaned into the culture-war framing of election security. His ads featured bizarre imagery like puppets, zombies, and space aliens to dramatize his pledge to keep “voter fraud” at bay—a claim that Ohio’s current Secretary of State has repeatedly said is rare. Sprague advocates for universal voting machines with secure paper trails but defends the existing system as robust. His primary rival, Strbich, criticized the system’s software security and touted his military background as a qualification to overhaul it.

It’s worth noting that Ohio already requires every vote to be backed by either a paper ballot or a voter-verified paper audit trail, making the GOP’s voter fraud scare tactics another example of election denialism designed to sow doubt and justify restrictive voting laws.

Libertarian candidate Tom Pruss also ran, pulling in roughly 1,000 votes, but the race will now focus squarely on Russo and Sprague as they prepare for the general election on November 3.

This showdown matters far beyond Ohio. The Secretary of State’s office is the frontline in protecting or undermining democracy, and with rising authoritarian threats nationwide, voters must choose someone willing to defend the right to vote against partisan power grabs.

We will be watching closely as Russo and Sprague campaign on competing visions for Ohio’s elections—one grounded in democratic accountability, the other in fear-mongering and election denial.

Stay tuned for ongoing coverage as this critical race unfolds.