Republicans came into the 2014 elections holding more positions in Ohio, and they got the early lead on Tuesday and kept it.

“[John] Kasich and [Mary] Taylor seem to be running really strong,” said Doris Herringshaw, a Wood County commissioner who won re-election.

Herringshaw and other Republican candidates and supporters gathered at the Perrysburg Republican Victory Center as election results came in.

Kasich and Taylor were declared the winners early in the evening. In Wood County, Kasich won 63.78 percent of the votes, according to the Wood County Board of Elections [WCBOE].

The strength of the incumbent governor and lieutenant governor helps other Republican candidates at the state and local levels, Herringshaw said.

Early in the evening, Jeremiah Wagner, coordinator of the Perrysburg Republican Victory Center, expected that all Republican incumbents at the state level would win re-election. The only possible exception was Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith L. French.

“She has a lot of things stacked against her,” Wagner said.

Name recognition is everything in judicial races, Wagner said. Her name may not be as well-known because she was appointed rather than elected.

Additionally, her opponent, John P. O’Donnell, shares a last name with Terrence O’Donnell, an Ohio justice who is not up for re-election. That could have confused voters, Wagner said.

French won 56.26 percent of the votes in Wood County, according to the WCBOE. She was re-elected in what the Associated Press called “one of the year’s toughest races.”

Wagner said voter turnout looked higher than expected. In the gubernatorial race, 34,432 votes were cast in Wood County, according to the WCBOE.

In the 2010 gubernatorial race, 43,775 people voted in Wood County, according to the WCBOE.

Attorney General Mike DeWine, Auditor of State Dave Yost, Secretary of State Jon Husted and Treasurer of State Josh Mandel, all Republicans, won in Wood County and were re-elected.

Bob Latta, the U.S. Representative from Ohio’s fifth district, won re-election as well. He received 62 percent of the vote in Wood County.

Tim Brown won another term as the third district representative in the Ohio House of Representatives. Brown won 62.92 percent of the vote in Wood County.

Despite the wins, Brown warned that Republicans “can’t get too comfortable in celebration. The country is a 50/50 country. The state is a 50/50 state.”