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Endorses Hawkins

The race

One seat on the Supreme Court of Ohio, elected statewide on November 3, 2026, to a six-year term, with party labels on the ballot. Roster verified against the CSV's compilation source and corroborated by Ballotpedia News and the Dispatch: incumbent Justice Daniel R. Hawkins (R) against Marilyn Zayas (D), a judge of Ohio's First District Court of Appeals. Hawkins was elected in November 2024 to complete an unfinished term — the seat formerly held by Justice Joseph Deters — so this is his first full-term race.

Daniel R. Hawkins — Incumbent. A career Franklin County prosecutor before the bench: assistant prosecuting attorney, then director of the Special Victims Unit — his 2026 advertising leads with that record ("As director of the Franklin County SVU, Dan delivered for victims"). He then served on the Franklin County Municipal Court's Environmental Division and the Court of Common Pleas (2019–2024) before his 2024 election to the Supreme Court. His stated philosophy, in his own words: "It's not a judge's job to legislate or to provide guidance — rather, their job is to call balls and strikes and simply decide the case before the court," and, "I don't rule as a Republican or a Democrat. I rule as a judge following the Constitution." On the bench he joined the Supreme Court decision allowing a man with a domestic-violence history to petition to restore his gun rights, and joined the opinion allowing Ohio's ban on gender-affirming care for minors to be enforced while an appeal was pending; his campaign says he "cracked down on… illegal immigration" from the trial bench. Endorsements include the Ohio Manufacturers' Association PAC, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, and the joint business slate (Ohio Chamber, NFIB Ohio, Ohio Business Roundtable, Ohio Farm Bureau, Ohio Manufacturers' Association) citing a "stable and predictable judicial system." No ethics complaint, reversal scandal, or broken-promise file on Hawkins surfaced in the deep pass; the honest limit on his file is tenure — two years on the high court is a short appellate record to judge.

Marilyn Zayas — Challenger. Judge of the First District Court of Appeals since 2016, with more than 1,000 cases decided by her campaign's count; before the bench, an IT manager at Procter & Gamble with a computer-programming degree, then a lawyer (licensed 1999) in private immigration practice and as a Hamilton County public defender. Credits that are real and cross-party: the Chief Justice selected her by special assignment to sit on the Ohio Supreme Court in cases where a justice recused — her campaign counts three such appointments in 40 days in 2025 — and she was named the Hispanic National Bar Association's 2024 Latina Judge of the Year. Her stated philosophy: the court should be "a beacon of integrity and accountability, free from outside influence"; she pledges to "bring common sense, leave politics at the door, ensure fair access, and rule based solely on the law and facts," and her Ballotpedia Candidate Connection response says her record reflects "following the Constitution, the law, and the facts, not political pressure or special interests." She would be the first Latina on the Ohio Supreme Court. She lost a 2022 bid for the court. What the deep pass does not contain: any documented instance of Zayas ruling against her own side's preferences, any textualist/originalist commitment, or any ruling restraining the judiciary itself — her file is competence and independence language, not a restraint record.

Pros and cons

Hawkins: Pros: A prosecutor-to-judge law-and-order career (Special Victims Unit director) and an explicit balls-and-strikes, no-legislating philosophy, with early high-court votes consistent with deference — letting the people's enacted minor-care ban operate during appeal. Business and law-enforcement endorsements. Cons: Only two years of appellate judging; voters are extrapolating from a short record, and his trial-bench immigration line is a campaign claim, not an audited record. Zayas: Pros: A decade of appellate judging, 1,000-plus cases, and the sitting Chief Justice's repeated trust to sit on the Supreme Court itself — the strongest competence credential in either Ohio race. A genuine American-dream biography, from a Puerto Rican immigrant household to the appellate bench. Cons: No documented restrained or break record under our test; "integrity and independence" is a temperament claim, not a philosophy of restraint, and her 2022 loss means Ohio voters have passed on this promotion once before.

Record gaps

OUR CALL

Our call: endorse Daniel R. Hawkins. The evidentiary basis: the incumbent states the restraint doctrine plainly — call balls and strikes, do not legislate — and his short high-court record is consistent with it, including deferring to the legislature's enacted law while litigation proceeds. His prosecutor and trial-bench career is due-process law-and-order in service, not in slogan. Zayas is the most credentialed challenger in this batch and we say so plainly; but under LiberalMind doctrine a Democratic judge earns our endorsement with a documented restrained break record, and a decade of well-regarded appellate service without one documented break does not meet that bar. Hawkins's brevity on the court is an unproven-watch note, never a demerit. Vote Hawkins.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

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Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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