Ohio's Blue Wave Puts Mothers in Power as Women Set Records

Ohio's blue wave carried a trio of mothers into the state's highest offices. Amy Acton, Allison Russo and Kristina Knickerbocker will take over as governor, secretary of state and U.S. representative, each of them replacing a man. Acton is one of 18 women expected to serve as governor in 2027, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University — 15 Democrats and three Republicans. That clears the previous record of 14, set in 2025.

Knickerbocker, a nurse practitioner and military veteran who made health care a centerpiece of her campaign, defeated U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, a Dayton Republican. She'll be among 159 women in the 120th Congress, beating the old record of 152 set in 2024.

Before Tuesday's election, Congress had more men named John than it had mothers, said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO of MomsRising, a 20-year-old organization pushing for family-friendly policy on gun safety, health care, education and maternal health. "In this election there is a seismic shift," Rowe-Finkbeiner said. "We aren't all the way there yet, but it is a giant leap forward."

Voters squeezed by high prices backed candidates who spoke to kitchen-table costs, said Kristy Pagan, senior political director of the Vote Mama Foundation, which researches mothers' political participation. "I think women and moms specifically won because they ran on delivery for everyday working families," Pagan said, ticking off groceries, gas, childcare and medical bills. Women made up 52% of Ohio voters Tuesday, and in the U.S. Senate race 55% of Ohio women voted for Democrat Sherrod Brown against 41% for Republican Jon Husted, who was defeated, according to the New York Times' Voter Trends study.

Katie Paris, founder of the progressive group Red, Wine and Blue, pins part of the Ohio GOP's collapse on Vivek Ramaswamy's attack ad featuring Acton's mother denying her childhood trauma. "It ended up bringing down the whole Republican ticket," Paris said, pointing out that no Republican on the ballot with him denounced the ad and many kept campaigning alongside him on a bus tour. She also flagged statewide Republicans holding onto their endorsement of U.S. Rep. Max Miller, accused by his ex-wife of domestic violence, and going quieter on the Epstein files once President Donald Trump was re-elected.

Russo, whose three children run from a college sophomore down to a fourth grader, said parenting keeps her dialed into Ohio families. "We're having a lot of conversations with people that are in the midst of raising families, so we're probably more tuned into what those issues and concerns and struggles are," she said. Childcare was the hardest puzzle of her first run, when her youngest was not yet 2, and she said family safety now tops the list of worries among women she urges to run as political violence and vitriol have risen. Russo was targeted herself about three years ago by an anonymous X account that mentioned her walking her daughter to school — something she had never shared publicly — and reported it to the sergeant-arms.