| Election Name: | 2010 Ohio Attorney General election |
| Country: | Ohio |
| Type: | presidential |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 2008 Ohio Attorney General special election |
| Previous Year: | 2008 (special) |
| Next Election: | 2014 Ohio Attorney General election |
| Next Year: | 2014 |
| Election Date: | November 2, 2010 |
| Image1: | File:2011MikeDewineHiResWeb (cropped).jpg |
| Nominee1: | Mike DeWine |
| Party1: | Republican Party (United States) |
| Popular Vote1: | 1,821,414 |
| Percentage1: | 47.54% |
| Nominee2: | Richard Cordray |
| Party2: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| Popular Vote2: | 1,772,728 |
| Percentage2: | 46.26% |
| Map Size: | 200px |
| Attorney General | |
| Before Election: | Richard Cordray |
| Before Party: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| After Election: | Mike DeWine |
| After Party: | Republican Party (United States) |
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.
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.[1] 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.[2]
| Poll source | Dates administered | Richard Cordray (D) | Mike DeWine (R) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Survey USA | September 10–13, 2010 | 40% | align=center | 47% | |
| The Columbus Dispatch | August 25 – September 3, 2010 | 42% | align=center | 44% | |
| Public Policy Polling | August 27–29, 2010 | 40% | align=center | 44% | |
| Public Policy Polling | June 26–27, 2010 | 41% | align=center | 44% |
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.