Alison McCarty

incumbent

Judge of the Court of Common Pleas (General Division) (Full term commencing 1-5-2027) · Summit County, Ohio · November 3, 2026

Also on the ballot: Job Esau Perry

Alison McCarty is the Republican incumbent judge of this Common Pleas seat, serving since 2008 and currently the court's Administrative Judge. She faces Democrat Job Esau Perry in the November general election.

What this office decides

General Division judges of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas preside over felony criminal cases, civil lawsuits over $15,000, foreclosures, and some appeals from state agencies. They set bond and sentence people convicted of felonies. Judges serve six-year terms and appear on the general-election ballot without party labels, though they are nominated in party primaries.

How this race lines up with you

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Dossier

Researched 2026-09-23 · Claude Code research agent with web search

Donald Trump: nothing found. No statement by or about Donald Trump regarding this candidate or race was found.

Who they are

Alison McCarty is the sitting judge of this seat, first elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2014 and 2020; she is currently the court's Senior Judge and Administrative Judge, overseeing roughly 175 employees (Signal Akron). She ran as the Republican candidate in the May 2026 primary (Signal Akron). Before this court she was a Summit County assistant prosecutor (1989-1999) and an Akron Municipal Court judge (1999-2008), creating Ohio's first urban DUI court (Keep Judge McCarty). The Akron Bar Association rated her "Excellent" for 2026 (Akron Bar Association).

Positions

Crime & policing: Her campaign lists "criminal justice reform through reentry court programs" alongside addressing addiction-related crime through specialty courts and managing large criminal dockets (Keep Judge McCarty; Signal Akron). As a prosecutor she tried roughly 100 jury trials, including the murder prosecution of former Akron police captain Douglas Prade (Keep Judge McCarty).
Party politics in courts and agencies: Ran in the partisan Republican primary; the general-election ballot carries no party label for this office (Signal Akron). No public position found on partisan vs. nonpartisan judicial elections.

Record

Created Ohio's first urban DUI court and ran Akron's Drug Court (2003-2007) as a municipal judge; on the Common Pleas bench she presides over a Re-Entry Court program and, as Administrative Judge, oversees the court's docket and personnel (Keep Judge McCarty). No individual Common Pleas rulings were found.

Money

No fundraising totals were found. Ohio's campaign finance portal (ohiosos.gov) returned an access error to automated retrieval.

What we couldn't find

Campaign finance figures.
The exact date of her 2025 Administrative Judge announcement.
Any statement by or about Donald Trump regarding this race.

Sources (6)