In the AP count of Ohio's special Senate election of 3 November 2026, Sherrod Brown leads Jon Husted by 4.2 points (49.7% to 45.5%) with about 97% counted, and the last 3% of votes cannot widen the gap to 8 points; the Ohio state site holds a bot check.
History. 3 of 9 races with a known margin: West Virginia 1942 (4.5), Connecticut 1950 (0.1), Mississippi 2018 (7.3). The Alabama 1938 count is not on open pages.
Hunch. The last time Husted ran statewide, in 2018 as lieutenant governor, his ticket won Ohio by about 164,000 votes, 2,231,917 to 2,067,847.
The margin market resolves on the official Ohio Secretary of State result and the AP count: YES if the gap between the top two candidates' shares of all votes cast for candidates is under 8.0 points, NO if it is 8.0 or more. Reuters and The Guardian are the backup.
We looked for cases where a senator appointed from the president's party ran in a special election for the rest of the term in a midterm year, with the president under 50% approval or not yet measured. We found 26 since 1914, all equal on what we could check, and kept the ten most recent, from 1934 to 2022. The appointed senator won 19 of the 26, and 9 of the 10.