1986 Ohio gubernatorial election
election for the governorship of the U.S. state of Ohio
The 1986 Ohio gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 1986. Incumbent Democratic Governor Dick Celeste ran against four time former Governor Jim Rhodes, who had previously defeated the last two incumbent Democratic governors in 1962 and 1974. The two had faced off before in 1978, with Rhodes winning by 47,536 votes for his fourth victory. Eight years later, at the age of 77, Rhodes was attempting to win a record fifth term. However, Celeste won by an even bigger margin than he did four years earlier, becoming the first Democrat to win consecutive elections for Governor since Frank Lausche, who won four consecutive times in 1948, 1950, 1952, and 1954. As of 2022, this is the last time a Democrat was re-elected Governor of Ohio and the only time a Democrat won a second four-year term. This was the penultimate time a Democrat was elected Governor of Ohio, with the last time being in 2006.
The public source identifies “1986 Ohio gubernatorial election” as election for the governorship of the U.S. state of Ohio. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ohio, gubernatorial and election.
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This entry incorporates text from “1986 Ohio gubernatorial election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.