An Army Ranger-turned-state-representative and a retired school superintendent with 34 years in Ohio classrooms are squaring off for the open Ohio Senate District 27 seat, a race that covers all of Portage County plus slices of southwest Geauga and northwest Summit counties. Republican Steve Demetriou of Bainbridge Township and Democrat Mike Roberto of Kent are competing to replace outgoing Senator Kristina Daley Roegner, who cannot run again because of term limits.
Two Very Different Resumes
Demetriou currently serves as the Republican state representative covering Bainbridge Township, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating with Dean's List honors and a degree in economics, and went on to serve as an Army infantry officer, earning his Ranger tab and airborne wings before leading an infantry platoon during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, for which he received a Bronze Star. Since returning home, he has helped run multiple small businesses with his family and says he grew one of them from three employees to more than 60 in three years. He and his wife have three sons and are parishioners at Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church. Demetriou's rise inside the Statehouse has been fast: he entered the Ohio House in 2023 representing District 35, and in January 2025 he was tapped as House Majority Whip for the Republican caucus in the 136th General Assembly, according to LegiStorm.
Roberto, meanwhile, was born and raised in Ravenna and attended Ravenna City Schools before earning a bachelor's degree in education, a master's in secondary educational administration, and an education specialist degree, all from Kent State University. Per the Beacon Journal's reporting, he spent 15 years teaching biology, chemistry, and environmental science in Summit and Portage county public schools, then moved into administration as assistant principal at Ravenna High and Aurora High, principal of Aurora High School, and Aurora's assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction before becoming Aurora City Schools superintendent for five years until 2025. He now lives in Kent and has four adult children.
Property Taxes Dominate the Debate
Demetriou identifies cost of living, especially property taxes, as the biggest issue facing the district, telling the Beacon Journal that tax bills keep climbing even when a homeowner's property or income has not changed. The pressure is not abstract for District 27 residents: Portage County completed its mandatory six-year property revaluation for Tax Year 2024, pushing assessments higher and triggering a wave of formal appeals before the county Board of Revision into early 2025, according to the Portage County Auditor.
Demetriou says he helped lead the legislative override of a gubernatorial veto that ended levy mechanisms allowing taxes to rise without straightforward ballot language, and he cosponsored reform empowering county budget commissions to reduce levies that collect more revenue than communities actually need. He points to a package the governor signed in December 2025 delivering more than $3 billion in homeowner relief over three years, which caps automatic tax growth at the rate of inflation, refunds homeowners for excess payments, and increases the rollback for people who live in their own homes. The package adds to recent state efforts to provide property-tax relief.
Roberto's Pitch on Local Control and Utility Costs
Roberto names a wider slate of concerns: affordable housing, high property taxes, rising food and energy costs, and the impact of data centers on local communities. Some residents, per the Beacon Journal, worry that data centers could affect local water quality and quantity, and Roberto says the energy these facilities consume has already pushed up electric bills.
Those utility concerns track with a statewide regulatory shift. In May 2026 the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio ordered FirstEnergy utilities to set up distinct rate structures for large data centers, requiring the tech facilities to pay dedicated transmission costs rather than passing those expenses on to residential customers, according to the Ohio Manufacturers' Association. That order came after lawmakers in Columbus passed House Bill 15 in August 2025, which streamlined Ohio Power Siting Board reviews to speed approvals for new power plants and transmission lines serving data center growth, per the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
On policy, Roberto says increased local funding could help townships, fire departments, police, libraries, and schools avoid going back to residents for levies just to fill gaps left by state funding shortfalls. He plans to advocate for more local control and financial support for local governments, and says he wants to work to return both decision-making authority and tax revenue currently sent to Columbus back to local communities.
A Swing District With a Recruitment Strategy Behind It
District 27 has a track record of close finishes. In the 2022 general election, Roegner won re-election with 51.1% of the vote, or 73,801 votes, narrowly beating Democrat Patricia Goetz's 48.9%, or 70,609 votes — a margin of just 2.2 percentage points, according to Ballotpedia. That competitiveness followed post-2020 redistricting that reconfigured the seat across Portage County and parts of Summit and Geauga counties.
Roberto's candidacy also fits into a broader statewide push: Ohio Democrats have built a 2026 recruitment strategy around public school educators, aiming to put former superintendents like Roberto into competitive Statehouse races to capitalize on voter concern over expanded private school vouchers and funding pressure on public districts, as reported by Signal Ohio.
During her tenure, Roegner delivered real dollars to the district, securing $7 million in state capital funding in June 2024 for projects including $3.8 million for sanitary sewer infrastructure in New Franklin and $3.2 million for airport expansion in Summit County, according to the Ohio Senate. Whoever wins in November will inherit a district still digesting those investments alongside the tax and utility pressures both candidates are campaigning on.
Where to See the Candidates — and What to Bring
Voters will get a chance to hear both men make their case directly later this month. The League of Women Voters of Hudson and the Akron Area has scheduled a candidate forum for October 20 at the Akron-Summit County Public Library, inviting both Demetriou and Roberto to discuss district priorities ahead of the general election.
Whoever shows up at the polls on November 3 will need to bring identification: Ohio law requires all voters to present an unexpired, government-issued photo ID at polling places, per the Geauga County Republican Party.
