CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Jeff Lehner had no opponent in Tuesday’s election. He still won it by more than anyone else on the Ross County ballot.
The Republican county auditor collected 18,830 votes, or 75.8% of the 24,858 ballots cast, according to unofficial results from the Ross County Board of Elections. That was more than fellow unopposed Republican David Pinkerton drew for county commissioner (18,665) and more than Jeffrey Marks, the county prosecutor elected probate and juvenile judge without a party label (18,600) — even though the auditor’s line sat below both on the ballot, where voters typically drop off.
It was also 4,648 more votes than Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor, received at the top of the ticket. Lehner outpolled Ramaswamy in all 65 precincts. Roughly four in 10 voters who did not mark Ramaswamy still filled in Lehner’s oval, and they did so at nearly the same rate in Chillicothe’s most Democratic wards as in the county’s reddest townships.
Four years ago, Lehner was a first-time candidate in a contested race, defeating Democrat Robyn Brewster 15,132 to 7,488 and carrying 62 of 65 precincts. His share that year tracked almost exactly with the county’s Republican baseline. This year, his raw vote rose 24% while the political climate moved the other way: Ramaswamy’s 60% share of the two-party vote for governor was 13 points below Gov. Mike DeWine’s 2022 mark in the county.
Much of Lehner’s growth is mechanical. With no Democrat on the line, most of Brewster’s former voters simply skipped the race, and higher turnout in a gubernatorial year added ballots. But the margin over Pinkerton and Marks, who faced the same ballots and the same voters, points to something the numbers alone do not explain: people know his name, and they like it.
They see it more often than they may realize. Every gas pump, restaurant scale and grocery-store conveyor belt in Ross County carries a red weights-and-measures sticker certifying that the auditor’s office checked it, and the name printed on it is Jeff Lehner’s.
The auditor’s office has been in the headlines for two years. Lehner oversaw the county’s first commercial and industrial reappraisal since 2007, set to appear on 2026 tax bills, and in 2025 joined Treasurer David Jeffers in proposing a one-year, $3.7 million property-tax cut. As part of the county’s second-half 2025 property tax distribution, he waived $450,000 in real estate fees, following similar waivers in 2023 and 2024 that together returned nearly $1.5 million to the budgets of Ross County’s school districts, townships and other levying jurisdictions. And after a late-summer storm ripped through the southern part of the county, Lehner was quick to urge the commissioners to declare a state of emergency and announced that his office would reassess the value of any damaged homes to help their owners recover.
He has also shown a willingness to cross other officeholders in public. In the summer of 2024, when the county’s Job and Family Services director asked commissioners to place a new 1-mill levy for Children’s Services on the ballot — and suggested a spring election to keep turnout low — Lehner came out against it. He argued the county was projecting a $21 million carryover and could fund foster care from the general fund, as other Ohio counties do, rather than ask voters for more. Delaying the vote to avoid a bigger turnout, he said, was “terrible form.”
Commission President Dwight Garrett fired back, noting Lehner had said nothing when the request was presented. Lehner did not retreat. “I hope they reconsider,” he said, “because I don’t think the path they’re on is right for Ross County.”
That pattern — a position taken, a critic answered, no change in tone — is familiar to anyone who follows him online. Lehner regularly posts his views on contested issues, local and national, and he answers the people who push back. Voters who disagree are met with a reply, not a block. The exchanges are often long, usually civil and frequently end with the critic conceding a point or simply thanking him for engaging. Through it all, Lehner stays calm.
The replies under one of his recent posts, which drew dozens of comments, show what that earns him.
“I know as a moderate, guys like Jeff Lehner are getting a lot of positive attention,” wrote Matt Caressi, in a comment that collected 47 likes. “Whichever office you decide to run for in the future, you’re gaining more than you’re losing with your honesty. It’s refreshing and can be appreciated by most.”
Lori Graves, a local radio personality and comedian with a following of her own, told Lehner it took confidence to make the post and that she admired him for it.
“Whether someone agrees or disagrees with your position, it is a breath of fresh air to see someone willing to speak openly and honestly about what they believe,” Graves wrote. “We can challenge ideas, debate opinions, and disagree without attacking the person expressing them. … Please continue to speak your truth, sir. I may not always agree with you, but you have my respect.”
The pattern shows up on the map, too. Marks, running without an “R” beside his name, outran Lehner inside Chillicothe, 5,511 to 5,184, where Democratic-leaning voters were willing to back a nonpartisan judge but not a Republican. In the townships, the reverse held, and Lehner finished ahead of both men countywide. His edge over Pinkerton appeared in the city and the countryside alike, and it had no relationship to how Republican a precinct was.
Lehner’s strongest precincts were rural: Liberty East, Concord Roxabell, Concord Austin, Paint Township and Deer Clark, where his name was marked on more than 82% of ballots. His weakest, led by Chillicothe’s 5-A ward at 56.2%, were the same city wards where Brewster ran best in 2022.
Whether any of that translates beyond Ross County is a question only Lehner can answer. He has not said whether he intends to seek higher office, and a 165-vote edge over a fellow unopposed Republican is within what a handful of precincts can move. Still, in a year that was worse for Republicans in Ross County than 2022, the auditor was the one name on the ballot that more voters chose than any other.
If he decides to run for something bigger, the open question is whether the voters who have grown accustomed to engaging in heated discourse with him — and voting for him anyway — will follow.
