Ohio State Treasurer and former state representative Robert Sprague held off a grassroots bid from combat veteran and political outsider Marcell Strbich to win the Ohio Republican Secretary of State primary on May 5.
Sprague gained 70.1 percent of the vote compared to 29.9 percent for Strbich, the Associated Press reported at 8:10 p.m.
Sprague will face Rep. Allison Russo, who defeated physician Bryan Hambley in the Democratic primary by a 67.6 percent to 32.4 percent margin at 8:10 p.m. Libertarian Tom Pruss, who was unopposed in the primary, will also be on the ballot in the Nov. 3 general election.
A combat veteran, Strbich deployed five times during the operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel, he was assigned to the Pentagon in 2017. There, he advised the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on technology modernization and weapon system upgrades, he said.
Since leaving the military in 2024, he shifted his focus to election integrity in Ohio. He won an Ohio Supreme Court case—Strbich v. Montgomery County Board of Elections—which he said enforces citizenship verification training for poll workers.
Strbich lamented what he calls Ohio’s “musical chairs” culture in politics, where term-limited Republicans “rotate among offices with the blessing of party insiders, consultants, and major donors.”
Sprague served as a state representative for eight years before he was termed out and ran for state treasurer, a post he has held since 2019. He is completing his second term in that role.
The Ohio Republican Party endorsed Sprague, which Strbich said should not have happened.
“When you endorse in a competitive primary, that candidate gets reduced mailing rates, access to field staff, and inclusion in county mail pieces. This gives a major advantage because uninformed and disengaged voters tend to choose whichever name the state party endorses,” Strbich said.
“Why not have a competitive primary where the candidates debate, and voters make their decision based on which person voters like best, and then support that candidate in the general election?” he added.
Ohio Republican Party figures reached out to Strbich and encouraged him to drop out of the race, he told The Epoch Times.
“They’ve devoted hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat me instead of focusing on Democrats. That shows me that my candidacy threatens the establishment. They don’t want me to win,” he said.
Strbich didn’t air any television ads or accept PAC money, he said.
Sprague, 52, is a Findlay, Ohio, native, and lives there with his wife and children. He served as city auditor and treasurer in his hometown before entering the state legislature.
He graduated from Duke University, earned an MBA at the University of North Carolina, and worked as a management consultant at Ernst & Young.
Sprague told The Epoch Times that he was the only candidate in the race who had won a statewide election.
He said his experience managing a large state operation as state treasurer separated him from Strbich.
“People have trusted me with their tax dollars and we made the office secure. My goal is to make sure we have the most secure elections in Ohio history,” Sprague told The Epoch Times.
Both candidates prioritized election security and public confidence in results.
Sprague also advocated for a more stringent auditing process.
“When you have that separate piece of paper, it creates a perfect audit trail,” he said. “We can go back and we can audit the paper, to make sure the machines aren’t rigged and they are 100 percent accurate and the elections are 100 percent accurate.”
Twelve counties use electronic-only machines, Sprague noted. Switching over would cost between $16 million and $24 million, which he said he would ask the state to cover.
Democratic Candidates
In the Democratic primary, the winner, Russo was first elected to the Ohio House in 2018. A former health policy consultant, she served as House minority leader for three years before stepping down in 2025 to launch her secretary of state campaign.Hambley is a cancer doctor at the University of Cincinnati.
Both candidates said that current Secretary of State Frank LaRose has politicized the office and bent state elections to the will of President Donald Trump.
Russo said that as secretary of state, she would prioritize voter education and ensure that Ohioans aren’t distracted by “misinformation.”
Hambley said that Democrats in general have lost touch with communities across Ohio.
Like Strbich, Hambley is a political outsider who said he has not taken PAC money.
Experience, Russo said, is what differentiates her from Hambley.
“At this moment in time, when I think people are truly concerned about the threat to democracy and the attacks on democracy, we need a secretary of state who is not on a learning curve,” she said.