Kelly Jones wins Adams County commissioner GOP primary, advances unopposed

Kelly Jones’s primary victory all but locked in his place on the Adams County Board of Commissioners, keeping the board president on track to shape county budgets, staffing and policy through the next four-year term. Jones defeated challenger Alex Schaffer in the Republican primary for county commissioner, winning 1,889 votes to Schaffer’s 1,115, and no Democrat filed for the seat.

That leaves Jones positioned to advance to the Nov. 3 general election without an opponent and to seek the new term that begins Jan. 1, 2027. His current commissioner term runs through Dec. 31, 2026, so the fall election will determine who occupies one of the three seats that now belong to Barbara Moore Holt, Jones and Jason Hayslip.

The result gave Jones a clear governing mandate after a race built around two sharply different messages. Jones asked voters to return him to office based on experience, a business background and fiscal responsibility. Schaffer campaigned on reform, modernization and stronger engagement with state-level resources. In practical terms, voters chose continuity over a change bid in the county’s only contested commissioner primary.

The official canvass from the Adams County Board of Elections showed 4,070 ballots cast out of 17,042 registered voters, a turnout of 23.88 percent. All 21 precincts reported, and the ballot mix reflected the county’s partisan split: Republicans cast 3,216 ballots, Democrats 743, Libertarians 25 and nonpartisan voters 86. The numbers underline how a relatively small share of the electorate decided a race with direct consequences for county government.

Jones’s win came as Adams County voters also weighed in on the statewide Republican and Democratic primaries. County Republicans favored Vivek Ramaswamy for governor, giving him 1,905 votes to 820 for Casey Putsch. Democratic voters backed Amy Acton and David Pepper, who received 691 votes in the county’s Democratic governor primary. Those results showed the county’s voters moving in different directions across party lines even as they settled the commissioner race.

The county’s election machinery is centered at the Adams County Board of Elections, 923 Sunrise Avenue, Room 101, in West Union. The Ohio Secretary of State typically certifies results about three weeks after Election Day, but for Jones, the larger political question is already answered: Adams County voters kept the commissioner board in Republican hands and sent him toward another term with no general-election challenger standing in the way.