2010 Ohio Attorney General election

The 2010 Ohio Attorney General election was held on November 2, 2010, concurrently with other statewide offices including a Class 1 Senate election as well as the Governor election. Incumbent Democratic Attorney General Richard Cordray who was elected in a 2008 special election ran for a full 4-year term but was defeated by Republican challenger and former 2-term United States senator Mike DeWine. Being decided by 1.2%, this was the closest statewide election in Ohio. Cordray and DeWine faced off again in Ohio's 2018 Governor election; DeWine won that election by 3.7 percentage points.

Background
In 2008, then Ohio State Treasurer Richard Cordray ascended to the office of Attorney General following his victory in a 2008 special election triggered by the resignation of Marc Dann. Cordray won his election in a landslide winning by 18 percentage points, being held concurrently with the presidential election when Barack Obama carried the state by a bit under 5 percentage points. During Cordray's tenure, he got involved in cases against the Bank of America Corporation as well as the American International Group.

In 2009, former United States Senator Mike DeWine announced he would seek the office of Attorney General, 3 years after Sherrod Brown defeated him in the 2006 election. Due to the growing unpopularity of the Obama administration, many political observers predicted 2010 would be a tough year for Democrats. As such, polling predicted that DeWine had a narrow edge over Cordray.

Declared

 * Richard Cordray, incumbent Attorney General, former Ohio State Treasurer, former Ohio House of Representatives member from the 33rd district, former Treasurer of Franklin County, former Solicitor General of Ohio, nominee for OH-15 in 1992, nominee for Attorney General in 1998, and candidate for U.S. Senate in 2000.

Declared

 * Mike DeWine, former U.S. Senator, former lieutenant governor of Ohio, and former U.S. Representative.

Results
In the end, DeWine defeated Cordary by exactly 1.28 percentage points. Cordray held his own in his home county of Franklin and various other suburbs but, his loss can be mainly attributed to his loss of ground in Appalachian Ohio as well as the overwhelmingly Republican national environment. DeWine similarly did well in his home county of Greene and narrowly carried the ancestrally Republican Hamilton County.