Pink Rose Society

Cleveland 2026 Elections

The local layer of a Cleveland voter's November 3, 2026 ballot, beneath the statewide slate. As in Columbus, there is no city race in 2026 — Mayor Justin Bibb was re-elected in November 2025 (~74%) and a city council now shrunk from 17 wards to 15 was seated in January 2026; both are next up in 2029. But unlike Columbus, Cleveland sits in a charter county whose top job is on the ballot.

What makes Cuyahoga different

Cuyahoga runs on a charter government — an elected County Executive and an 11-member County Council, not the three-commissioner model. The Executive is the most powerful local office in Northeast Ohio, and it anchors the 2026 county ballot. Cuyahoga's judiciary is also genuinely contested, a sharp contrast with the one-party benches of Franklin County.

The races worth watching

The rest of the ballot

  • Congress: Ohio 11th Congressional District 2026 — Shontel Brown (D) vs. Kirchner (R), safe D (Cleveland core). After the 2025 remap, Cuyahoga is split between only OH-11 and OH-7.
  • Ohio Senate: SD-21 (Kent Smith, D, safe) and SD-23 — open, with Minority Leader Nickie Antonio term-limited, Bride Rose Sweeney (D) the likely successor.
  • Ohio House: all Cuyahoga seats (HD 13–23). Cleveland-core seats are safe D (two drew no Republican); HD-17 is the battleground.
  • County Council: six odd-numbered seats up; besides D5, District 11 is open and District 1 contested; three seats are unopposed Democrats.
  • Levies: none certified yet, but two countywide measures are emerging for November — a GCRTA transit sales tax (timing still being decided) and a Developmental Disabilities levy. The big county levies (health & human services, arts, Metroparks, Cleveland schools) were all recently renewed.

Why it matters

Cleveland concentrates power in a single county executive and a contested court system — the opposite of Columbus's pattern, where the mayor is the story and the courts run unopposed. The 2026 ballot is a study in how a different local structure distributes accountability: fewer marquee partisan fights up top, more real choices down-ballot in the council and the courts.

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