The nationwide blue wave in the 2026 election also hit Akron.
In a city disproportionately full of Democratic voters, Governor-elect Amy Acton and Senator-elect Sherrod Brown flipped the handful of previously red neighborhoods from 2024 for a clean sweep of all 120 Akron precincts.
Even their worst-performing districts still voted for them at a higher rate than across the state as a whole.
That includes the voting district in Akron that voted the most strongly Republican on Nov. 3. Located in Ward 6 in the area directly east of Goodyear Heights Metro Park, the 6-A precinct is technically in the Ellet neighborhood on the Tallmadge border. It supported both Ohio governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and soon-to-be former U.S. Sen. Jon Husted at higher rates than any other neighborhood in the city.
The 44.7 percent support for Ramaswamy in 6-A makes it the only Akron precinct to back the Columbus businessman at a higher rate than the 44.4 percent he garnered statewide. Its 44.1 percent backing of Husted was roughly one percentage point lower than he earned statewide.
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Two other Ellet precincts and a High Hampton precinct were the only other areas in Akron that backed the Republican candidates above 40 percent.
Eighteen of Akron’s 120 precincts gave both Acton and Brown, the Democrat candidates for governor and senator, respectively, at least 85 percent of the vote. Sixteen of them are in the Sherbondy Hill and West Akron neighborhoods. All backed the three Freedom BLOC-led charter amendments.
A Ward 3 precinct in Sherbondy Hill, located just south of the John Brown monument, gave Brown his highest support in Akron at 93.7 percent, while one West Akron neighborhood east of the Lawton Street Community Center showed the highest support for Acton, who amassed 95 percent of the vote there.
No Akron precincts voted majority Republican in 2026
All 12 Akron precincts that voted for Republican Donald Trump for president in 2024 backed Democrat Acton for Ohio governor in 2026 rather than Ramaswamy.
In those 12 precincts that carried Trump with a combined 52.5 percent of the vote in 2024 — four are clustered in Kenmore and Summit Lake, seven are clustered in Ellet and Goodyear Heights, and one is located in the Merriman Valley — only 39 percent voted for Ramaswamy two years later. Kamala Harris won 45.2 percent in those precincts when she ran for president two years ago. Those precincts showed up overwhelmingly for Acton with 57.1 percent.
In the 2026 election, all but two of the previously Trump-backing precincts voted against giving the police oversight system more authority. All of the 12 precincts voted against Issue 12 and four voted against Issue 11.
All four precincts that backed Sen. Bernie Moreno ahead of Sherrod Brown in 2024 voted for Brown over Jon Husted two years later. Husted, like Ramaswamy, did not win any Akron precincts.
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Democrats performed better in 2026 than in 2024
Acton won all of Akron’s precincts and performed better than Harris did for president two years ago in all but three of Akron’s 120 precincts. Acton won 74.7 percent of Akron’s vote compared to Ramaswamy’s 22.2 percent in the governor’s race. In the 2024 presidential race, Harris earned 66.1 percent of Akron’s presidential vote compared to Trump’s 32.6 percent.
Brown also won all 120 of Akron’s precincts over Husted, earning 72.1 percent of the citywide vote compared to Husted’s 22.3 percent. In 2024, Brown won a majority of 116 precincts in Akron but was ultimately unseated by Republican challenger, Mareno. Moreno.
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Fewer registered voters in Akron from 2024 to 2026
Summit County data from the 2024 and 2026 elections documents that 104 of Akron’s 120 precincts lost registered voters in the last two years for a combined 3,065 fewer Akronites.
The precinct that lost the most registered voters is in Ward 2, near the former Chapel Hill Mall. That area lost 121 registered voters in two years, dragging its total down 12.1 percent. Two other precincts that lost at least 10 percent of their registered voters include an area in Ward 1 near the Timber Top Condominiums and a precinct in Ward 6 near Hyre Community Learning Center in Ellet.
The biggest increase in registered voters is in Ward 3, just south of the University of Akron campus, which gained 123 compared to 2024, raising its total by 9.8 percent. The area with the second-highest increase is in Ward 8 near the Akron Peninsula and West Bath roads intersection. It landed 63 more registered voters, raising its total by 5.2 percent.
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