Unofficial results show Kasich beat Strickland by just 77,133 votes out of 3.7 million votes cast.
The previous Ohio gubernatorial campaign spending record — $28.7 million — was set in 2006 when Strickland beat then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.
DeWine: No problem with campaign loans
Republican Mike DeWine said Friday he won’t forgive $2 million in personal loans he made to his campaign account and he doesn’t see any problem with an attorney general seeking campaign contributions to eventually pay himself back.
“Paying a campaign debt, in this case a loan, has been done by numerous officials in the state of Ohio in the past. This is not unprecedented. And, the answer is no, I don’t think there are any ethical problems,” said DeWine, who defeated incumbent Attorney General Richard Cordray in the Nov. 2 election.
Ohio Citizen Action, a grassroots campaign finance watchdog group, has said the scale of DeWine’s loan may be a first in Ohio politics.
Democrat David Pepper of Hamilton County loaned his campaign $390,000 in the final weeks of the race with Republican Dave Yost for state auditor. Pepper lost, likely making it more difficult to get donors to help erase the loan. Pepper could not be reached for comment on whether he’ll write off the loan.
5th District spending report
And in the 5th District race for Ohio Senate, incumbent Fred Strahorn, D-Dayton, spent nearly 20 times as much money on his campaign as his opponent, Republican Bill Beagle, but lost. Campaign finance reports filed Friday show Strahorn spent $328,495 to keep his seat in the Senate, while upstart Beagle cobbled together a successful campaign on $16,630.
But Beagle didn’t pull off the upset single-handedly. He received $908,068 in in-kind donations from the Ohio Republican Party and Republican Senate Campaign Committee, which funded a media campaign.
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