Arielle Guttman had just finished a 12-hour nursing shift when she stopped to vote Tuesday morning at her polling location, St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church on Victory Parkway.
“I was excited to vote in the governor’s election,” she said. “I was looking forward to voting for Dr. Acton.”
She wasn’t alone. Hamilton County voters turned out at nearly twice the rate of the last primary, with about 19% of registered voters casting ballots compared to 9% in 2025.
The biggest upset came in the Hamilton County commissioner’s race, where Democrat Meeka Owens defeated incumbent Democrat Commissioner Stephanie Summerow Dumas, earning 51.93% of the vote to Dumas’s 41.03%. A third candidate, Herman Najoli, took 7.04%.
In the governor’s race, both major-party candidates advanced as expected. Vivek Ramaswamy won the Republican primary with 84.46% of the vote over Casey Putsch, while Democrat Amy Acton ran unopposed, taking 100% of ballots cast.
Democratic incumbent Greg Landsman held off Damon Lynch IV in the 1st Congressional District race with 65% of the vote. He will face Republican Eric Conroy and Libertarian John D. Hancock Jr. in November.
Not every voter came to the polls fired up. Emma Johnson-Rivard said nothing on the ballot particularly excited her. Still, she showed up anyway.
“It’s part of the process,” she said. “It’s important to be a part of a democratic society.”
Sam Stephenson said the primary matters precisely because most people ignore them.
“It’s really important to get out to get minority parties on the ballot and not just Democrat or Republican,” he said.
Voters also approved every ballot issue in the county, including tax levies for Delhi, Southwest Local, Mt. Healthy and North College Hill school districts, and a bond issue for the City of Reading.