The next state in our series of school board elections analyses – Ohio

Welcome to the Wednesday, December 13, Brew. 

By: Mercedes Yanora

Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:

1. The next state in our series of school board elections analyses – Ohio
2. More than 60% of local elections uncontested in new analysis
3. Five U.S. states and territories announced dates for their 2024 statewide primaries or presidential nominating contests

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The next state in our series of school board elections analyses – Ohio

Ballotpedia covered every school board election in seven states on Nov. 7: Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. We’re continuing our deep dive into election results in each of those states.

Over the past few weeks, we looked at Colorado, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Today, let’s look at Ohio.

Ohio had 1,486 school board seats up for election this year, just under half of the state’s 3,080 seats.

While these elections are officially nonpartisan, the Democratic and Republican Parties — and their affiliates, like county parties, youth organizations, and caucuses — often endorse candidates in these races. We found nearly 300 endorsements combined between the two parties. 

These endorsements account for 14% of the 2,081 candidates who ran in the general election. 

Of the two parties, Democratic endorsees had the higher win rate. Of their 130 endorsed candidates, 90 won, giving them a 69% win rate.

On the Republican side, of their 160 endorsed candidates, 86 won, giving them a 54% win rate.

Those totals include uncontested elections. If we look just at the endorsees who ran in races where they could have lost, the Democratic and Republican win rates drop to 66% and 44%, respectively.

The chart below shows each party’s respective win rates among contested elections in those five states.

A majority of the Democratic Party endorsees in all five states have won. For Republicans, a majority won in Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

But, as we mentioned above, most candidates in Ohio didn’t receive endorsements from either political party, based on our research.

Of the 1,486 seats up for election, candidates who received no endorsements won 1,221 (82%).

That total includes 35 seats where no candidate won because nobody filed to run, either on the ballot or as a write-in. Those seats will become vacant, and their respective school boards will fill them by appointment. 

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More than 60% of local elections uncontested in new analysis

In a new analysis of more than 10,000 local elections across 17 states, Ballotpedia found that more than 60% of local general elections in 2023 went uncontested. 

We define uncontested elections as any election where the number of candidates qualified for the ballot is equal to or less than the number of seats up for election.

In total, 6,589 (60.4%) of these elections were uncontested, while 4,322 (39.6%) were contested. For comparison, in 2022, just 3% of congressional elections, 11% of state executive races, and 32% of state legislative races were uncontested nationwide. In 2021, just 5.9% of state legislative races were uncontested. 

The data include a sample of local elections taken from 17 states and elections for offices such as school boards, city and local council members, county commissioners, judges, clerks, treasurers, auditors, assessors, and other local offices. The 17 states were Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Ballotpedia did not include primary elections in this dataset.

The elections in our analysis largely broke down into six different categories. These were: 

1. School boards (4,527 elections for this office type)
   1. % of uncontested races: 53.4%
2. Local council members (4,483)
   1. % of uncontested races: 57.6%
3. Treasurer (798)
   1. % of uncontested races: 87.3%
4. Clerk (729)
   1. % of uncontested races: 85.6%
5. Local judge (115)
   1. % of uncontested races: 76.5%
6. Mayor (95)
   1. % of uncontested races: 47.4%

Compared to the last three election cycles, 2023 had the highest percentage of uncontested local elections with 60%. This is higher than 40% in 2020, 37% in 2022, and 27.1% in 2021. Ballotpedia has analyzed the uncontested seat rate in federal, state executive, state legislative, state judicial, and local elections, with local elections consistently having the second-highest percentage of uncontested elections in every election cycle from 2020 to 2022. The uncontested seat rate for the same years was highest in state judicial elections. 

To explore more local election analysis, click below.

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Five U.S. states and territories announced dates for their 2024 statewide primaries or presidential nominating contests

The 2024 election season is already underway, and several U.S. states and territories have recently announced dates for their 2024 statewide primaries and presidential nominating contests. Here’s the latest information since our last update:

• Utah Republicans will hold their presidential caucus on March 5. The filing deadline for this caucus is Dec. 15, 2023.
• Rhode Island will hold its presidential primaries on April 2. The filing deadline for this primary is Dec. 30, 2023.
• Puerto Rico will hold its territory-wide primary on June 2.
• South Carolina will hold its statewide primary on June 11. The filing deadline for this primary is March 30. If necessary, a statewide primary runoff will be held on June 25.
• Washington will hold its statewide primary on Aug. 6. The filing deadline for this primary is May 10.

Fifty states, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia have announced 2024 statewide and territory-wide primary dates. Separately, fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas Islands, and Democrats Abroad have announced dates for at least one of their presidential nominating contests. 

The following U.S. states and territories have NOT announced at least one of their presidential primary or caucus dates:

• Wyoming (Republicans)
• American Samoa (Republicans)
• Guam (Republicans)
• North Mariana Islands (Republicans)

The following U.S. territories have NOT announced their territory-wide primary dates:

• American Samoa
• North Mariana Islands

Click below to read more about 2024 election dates.

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