Merrin +4Within margin of error
- Marcy M.c. Kaptur Democratic: 43%
- Derek Merrin Republican: 47%
OH2026
U.S. House - OH-09 · Ohio · 2026
General election · 2 on the November ballot · Incumbent running
Result
CalledMarcy Kaptur (D) won this race.
- Marcy KapturDemocraticIncumbentWinnershare not given159,306 votes
- Derek MerrinRepublicanshare not given142,830 votes
Also on the ballot, no count in the source: Matthew Althaus (I).
- Margin
- 16,476 votes
- Called
- Called by Wikipedia editors, Nov 4, 9:00 AM ET (revision)
- Last updated
- Nov 10, 4:38 AM ET
Called it: hit Our locked call before polls closed was D; the winner is D. See every locked call
Unofficial until the state certifies the result.
Before the election
Polls, ratings and the Vugol Tensor below were published before votes were counted. They are not results.
CandidatesU.S. House - OH-09 · Ohio
Marcy M.c. Kaptur
DEM
Derek Merrin
REP
No verified poll yet · Vugol Vector: D Tilting
Verified polls Leans Democratic (Tilting) on the Vugol Vector model, a snapshot of today, not a probability.
1 verified poll averaged. Page updated 2026-11-15. Sources · What is validated
ExperimentalNews attention 48/100, how much coverage the race gets, not who is winning. Updated 3 days ago. How it works
On the November ballot (2)
From reported primary results, checked 2026-11-14. Each state certifies its own ballot; see the source below.
Ran in the primary (4)
Lost a primary or runoff for this seat, not on the November ballot.
Other filers (1)
Registered with the FEC or listed in public records, but not on the November ballot as far as the results show.
Ballot source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2026_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Ohio&oldid=1384819350
Latest verified field polling
Verified = published by the pollster that conducted it, with a public source we link to.
Cite / verify
Cite thishttps://vugol.me/races/US-OH-09
Sourcehttps://www.nationaljournal.com/s/731831/exclusive-gop-poll-finds-slight-edge-in-must-win-house-race/?unlock=D93XBJAGANOVA1YA
Retrieved2026-11-15
Polling average Updates as polls arrive
Marcy Kaptur (D)Derek Merrin (R)● verified poll · ○ quarantined poll · ◎ live average
Campaign money (FEC)
Candidate committee totals for the cycle from the Federal Election Commission (public domain), as of each committee's latest report.
| Candidate | Raised | Spent | Cash on hand | Through |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marcy M.c. Kaptur | $5,910,481 | $5,661,900 | $697,508 | 2026-10-14 |
| Alea Nadeem | $749,818 | $749,818 | $0 | 2026-09-30 |
| Anthony Bruce Campbell | $34,319 | $27,640 | $6,680 | 2026-04-15 |
| Derek Merrin | $2,217,821 | $1,845,006 | $449,466 | 2026-10-14 |
| Josh Williams | $975,304 | $965,822 | $9,482 | 2026-09-30 |
| Madison Sheahan | $272,458 | $272,243 | $215 | 2026-09-30 |
| Wayne Charles Kinsel | $90,565 | $57,544 | $33,020 | 2025-09-30 |
Ad spending (FEC)
What each campaign reported paying for ads, and what outside groups (super PACs, PACs and parties) reported spending for and against each candidate. Federal Election Commission filings, public domain.
| Candidate | Campaign's own ads | Outside groups for | Outside groups against |
|---|---|---|---|
| Derek Merrin | $0 | $3.5M | $5.7M |
| Marcy M.c. Kaptur | $16K | $2.9M | $2.6M |
| Josh Williams | $45K | $45K | |
| Madison Sheahan | $54K | $28K | |
| Alea Nadeem | $24K | ||
| Anthony Bruce Campbell | $2,000 |
Biggest outside spenders
- Derek Merrin. For: SAFETY & AFFORDABILITY PAC INC. $2.2M, NO GOING BACK PAC INC. $535K, Americans for Prosperity Action, Inc. (AFP Action) DBA CVA Action and DBA LIBRE Action $443K. Against: HMP $5.2M, EDW Action Fund $347K, AMERICAN RESOLVE PAC INC. $77K
- Marcy M.c. Kaptur. For: New American Jobs Fund $696K, American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees PEOPLE $585K, CFFE PAC $528K. Against: SAFETY & AFFORDABILITY PAC INC. $1.1M, Club for Growth Action $706K, Americans for Prosperity Action, Inc. (AFP Action) DBA CVA Action and DBA LIBRE Action $341K
- Josh Williams. For: AMERICAN DREAM OHIO PAC $45K
- Madison Sheahan. For: AMERICAN RESOLVE PAC INC. $23K, Americans United for Values $4,500
Outside groups: 24- and 48-hour independent expenditure reports for the 2026 primary and general, through 2026-11-05, each expenditure counted once after amendments; "ads" is TV, radio, digital and other media, and the rest is mail, phones, canvassing and similar. Campaign's own ads: TV, radio, digital, other media and ad production in the campaign committee's itemized payments, as the campaign described them, from the reports the FEC has processed (latest through 2026-09-30); newer reports appear as the FEC processes them. These are amounts committees reported paying, not airtime tracked by ad-monitoring firms, so very recent buys and future reservations may not show yet. Parser fec-ad-spend-1.0.0.
Results
Vote counts as reported by the state; transcribed from the Wikipedia election article (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites the state’s official results.
general election
| Marcy Kaptur (incumbent) won | 159,306 | - |
| Derek Merrin | 142,830 | - |
Democratic primary
| Marcy Kaptur (incumbent) won | 45,827 | 100.0% |
Libertarian primary
| Matthew Althaus won | 535 | 59.3% |
| David Gedert | 368 | 40.7% |
Republican primary
| Derek Merrin won | 25,092 | 44.1% |
| Josh Williams | 14,419 | 25.3% |
| Madison Sheahan | 11,501 | 20.2% |
| Alea Nadeem | 3,109 | 5.5% |
| Anthony Campbell | 2,800 | 4.9% |
Source: Wikipedia article revision (CC BY-SA 4.0), retrieved 2026-11-10 · parser wiki-race-1.0.0+wiki-house-summary-1.0.0
Key dates
Official federal election dates for this state from the FEC. Registration deadlines and early voting: see the state election office.
- 2026-05-05, Primary election: U.S. House
- 2026-11-03, General election: U.S. House
Source: FEC election dates (public domain).
In the news
- Did Republican efforts to redistrict the House turn into a dummymander?
- Republicans redrew maps in effort to secure midterm victories. It backfired
- How redrawn House districts voted in the midterms
- Redistricting efforts blow up in Republicans' faces amid historic House losses
- 5 things to watch for in Tuesday’s midterm elections
- How Democrats could win the House, how the GOP could hang on, and where to look for a wave
- Final rating changes: 63 races move toward Democrats, 1 toward Republicans
- Jeffries says Democrats 'on the verge' of winning the House. It puts speaker's gavel in reach
- Midterm battle map grows as Republicans play defense in Nebraska, Ohio
- Bipartisan pushback swells against Trump’s Ukraine moves
Headlines from outlets across the political spectrum, linked to the publisher. Vugol.me doesn’t write or endorse them. How we choose them · All election news
LabVugol Vector & Vugol Attention
Vugol Attention 48 Vugol Vector D · Tilting
Vugol Me model signals, not polls. Verified polling is in the Polls section above.
Vugol Me Attention (attention intensity)
Vugol Attention intensity index 0–100 · not a poll · normalized nightly
48OUT OF 100Moderate attention
Vugol Attention percentile75th
7-day momentum2 / 100
Source breadth50% of tracked
Candidate attention share · trailing 7 days21% D · 79% R
Derek Merrin (R) 79% · volume 27 / 7dMarcy M.c. Kaptur (D) 21% · volume 7 / 7d
Vugol Vector
Proprietary ensemble model · a call, not a probability · model confidence: medium
Democratic leanOpen centerRepublican lean
AnchoredHeldTiltingOpenTiltingHeldAnchored
Completeness5 of 7 inputs (national, prior, incumbent, money, pulse) · missing: pres, poll
Evidenceno audit release · fundamentals only
Freshnessoldest input 2026-11-12 (3 days ago)
The breakdown of this call (the model's multi-signal input matrix, input by input) is on Ultra Pro plans.
Vugol Tensor
How far this call can miss · a range, not a prediction · no verified poll here, so the range is wider and untested
Centre D+7.2. Four times in five the result lands between D+16.6 and R+2.2; nine in ten between D+19.3 and R+4.9. Chance the Democrat finishes ahead: 84%.
Polls have missed by about four points in a typical race and they miss together. How Tensor works →
Desk data: daily telemetry
Per-source daily series, CSV export and the Vugol Vector breakdown · paid plans
Sources
- Roster, official filings; fundraising from FEC datapoints where on file (https://api.open.fec.gov/).
- Vugol Attention inputs, Wikipedia pageviews (https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/) and GDELT news volume and tone (https://www.gdeltproject.org/).
- Polls and results, individual polls and primary results listed on the Wikipedia election article (CC BY-SA 4.0), each poll linked to the pollster's release; money and election dates from the FEC (public domain). How rows are checked.
- Models attention-1.0.0 · vector-1.1.0 · attention inputs SHA-256 7f88aac3b10c · methodology · license CC BY 4.0 (data license).
Vugol Vector band: D · Tilting. Have a say in the Vugol race poll; it is open to signed-in voters and never feeds these numbers.
The four Vugol signals, side by side
They answer different questions and are kept apart. Full method: Methodology.
- Vugol Vector
- Our call for every race if today’s polls hold. A snapshot, not a win probability or a vote share.
- Vugol Tensor
- How sure we are: ranges and chamber-control odds around the Vector, built from past polling error. An experiment about uncertainty, not a better guess.
- Vugol Attention
- How much news and online noise a race gets, 0 to 100. It measures noise, not support: a high score says nothing about who is ahead.
- Vugol Pulse
- Our daily thumbs-up or thumbs-down question for readers. Anyone can answer, so it describes our readers, not the public. It is not a vote and never enters a poll average or any other signal.